Mr. Justin Gleeson:

What was probably most surprising for us in undertaking this work was that we would regularly do pieces for regions, local authorities and so on but when one is looking at one area such as the Gaeltacht as a whole, there are vast differences in place, particularly across the language planning areas.

There is variance even in basic things such as the percentage of people who speak Irish daily. The rate is 3% in some areas and it is very high in others. When one looks at the differences in sociodemographic elements such as deprivation and unemployment the challenge for the language plans in each language planning area is very different. A big difficulty will be trying to grasp that. That was the most surprising finding. Some of the most pressing issues relate to the ageing population and the declining population in some areas. So much of the overall figures for the Gaeltacht, the population of 100,000 and the recent growth, are based on growth in the commuter areas surrounding Galway. There are very high levels of non-Irish nationals and very low levels of Irish speakers in those areas. The Gaeltacht figures seem much higher than they really are. That is the most pressing thing. The biggest danger for Gaeltacht areas such as those in Mayo and in Deputy Doherty's own area of Donegal is the declining population and the ageing population. If we are back here talking about this in 20 years' time there may not be many people left in some of these Gaeltacht areas. Addressing those issues, keeping people in these areas, and attracting young people in the workforce back to these areas will be a big challenge for a number of these Gaeltacht areas. The Gaeltacht areas in Galway and Meath are quite vibrant. People in those areas have access to jobs and are within commuting distance of jobs. There is a very different scenario in those areas.