Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

It is an approximate figure. Compiling the island population is much more complicated than in the past because by Sunday night most people will have returned to the mainland. Therefore, one gets a smaller population than one would if a census were taken every day and divided by the number of days in the week. The figure is about 3,000 and is still decreasing on aggregate. However, the rate of decrease has slowed down. One of the challenges associated with turning rural populations around is the high number of old people who do not have families living with them. Even when one is turning around the population structure, one can still get an absolute decrease in the population. The big challenge, however, is the number of children at school and the number of people aged between 25 and 55 living on an island. That is the target group we must reach.

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