Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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696. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of students who currently hold an Irish language exemption for the 2025-2026 academic year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58249/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Statistics on exemptions from the study of Irish are extracted from the Primary and Post Primary On-line Databases at the end of August each year and published on the departments webpage thereafter. Therefore, details for the current 2025/26 school year are not available until September 2026.

Statistics for the 2024/25 school year have recently been published on the department’s website:

The number of exemptions from the study of Irish held by students should be seen in the broader context:

• School enrolments at post-primary level have increased from 362,899 in 2018/19 to 425,411 in 2024/25, representing an increase of 17% at post-primary level.
• Over 17,000 Ukrainian students alone are currently enrolled in our schools, over 10,000 at primary level and over 7,000 at post-primary.
• The number of children with more complex special educational needs is increasing and this is evidenced by the almost 1,700 new special classes that have been provided in mainstream schools over the last five years and special school enrolments are increasing by 300 each year.
• There are almost 28,000 students with special educational needs enrolled in special classes and special schools in the 2024/2025 school year. This equates to almost 3% of our overall primary and post-primary student population.
• The department is strengthening supports for Irish language education more generally through a number of means including:
• Work is at an advanced stage in the department on the development of a new policy on Irish-medium education outside of the Gaeltacht. It is intended that the policy will be published shortly.
• An action plan for Irish in English-medium schools is being finalised and is also due to be published shortly.
• Redeveloped Irish language curriculums at primary and Junior cycle level and work ongoing at senior cycle level.
• Supports and resources provided through COGG including very successful upskilling Irish language classes, a guidance toolkit which promotes careers and third level education opportunities with Irish, development of Irish resources to support learners with special educational needs, the development of An Tairseach, a portal to provide access to resources for Gaeltacht and Irish-medium schools and resources to support PE through Gaeilge.
• Teacher education and training including empowering teachers to use differentiated approaches in teaching the Irish language, in order to support children and young people with a diversity of needs.
• Funding to Foras na Gaeilge to progress a number of initiatives including the Gaelbhratach programme, further development of Seideán Sí and the development of an Irish/ Irish Dictionary.
• Ongoing work on the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) project in conjunction with the department’s support service OIDE and COGG.
• Ongoing teacher professional learning provided by Oide, the department’s professional learning support service.