In the last article, we showed the gap between public demand for Irish-medium education and the State's response.

The Government needs a comprehensive revival plan, with clear targets that are measurable and time-bound, with proper funding, and with political consequences if those targets are not met. The current framework does not yet satisfy that test.

Legal Right to Irish-Medium Education

The State should have a legal duty to provide Irish-medium education where there is clear demand.

Currently, parents and local campaigners are forced to fight school by school, town by town, county by county. They must grapple with the Department of Education's arguments about population projections, funding constraints, and demographic formulas.

But it should be the State's responsibility in the first place, to provide the necessary resources to meet the demand for Irish-medium education across the country.

But it should be the State's responsibility in the first place, to provide the necessary resources to meet the demand for Irish-medium education across the country.

Targets

Under the National Plan for Irish Language Public Services, the State is working toward the target that 20 percent of new recruits in the public sector will be competent in Irish by December 31, 2030. The plan is designed to increase the number and quality of public services available through Irish.

As we stated in the last article, an educational target is needed as a foundation for that goal. Otherwise, where will the Irish-speaking civil servants come from?

The Government should set national targets for Irish-medium education at pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools, and universities. Those targets should be measured, published, and submitted to the Oireachtas every year.

The Welsh Government's Cymraeg 2050 program includes targets for education through Welsh, including an interim milestone that 30 percent of children in Year 1 will be in Welsh-medium education by 2031. It also includes actions such as the Welsh Language and Education Bill, a 10-year plan to increase the number of teachers capable of teaching through Welsh, and supports for the use of Welsh between the school, the family, the community, and the workplace.

Cymraeg 2050 provides a practical template.

Priority for Teachers

No language revival succeeds without teachers being central to the process.

Ireland cannot expand Irish-medium education if schools cannot recruit qualified teachers with strong Irish. New Gaelcholáistí cannot be opened without Irish teachers. A proper system for the public service cannot be built if there are staff shortages in the education system itself.

Wales has a ten-year plan to develop enough teachers fluent in Welsh as part of Cymraeg 2050. Ireland needs a similar practical system.

That means scholarships for trainee Irish teachers. It means supporting Irish teachers to upskill. It means giving incentives to teachers in math, science, technology, and special education to teach through Irish. It means supporting teachers in Dublin and other expensive areas where housing issues make it much more difficult to recruit teachers.

The supply of teachers is the engine that will drive any language revival forward.

Continuity from Pre-school Onward

The Irish-medium process starts before primary school. It must continue through primary school, through secondary school, through third level, and into professional life.

That means more Naíonraí. More Gaelscoileanna. More Gaelcholáistí. More third-level courses through Irish. More supports for teachers, nurses, planners, Gardaí, civil servants, health workers, and social workers.

Canada's Action Plan 2023-2028 for Official Languages goes much further than education alone. It protects and promotes minority languages in the workplace and in the community, and supports the equality of the two official languages, French and English.

We should have a similarly comprehensive language plan, a plan that does not just relate to education, but that supports the use of Irish in the workplace, in public services, and in community life.

The Central Role of Local Authorities

Although the central government lays down national policies, it is at the local authority level that these policies succeed or fail.

County councils should have a duty to measure the demand for Irish-medium education in their areas. Every local authority should know where parents are seeking places for their children, where there are gaps in the education system, and where new workers will be needed to provide public services through Irish.

Responsibility in this area lies with the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, supported by agencies such as Údarás na Gaeltachta and Foras na Gaeilge. But a stronger cross-Departmental mandate from the State is also required, along with a ring-fenced budget for the language revival, and the publication of an annual report on progress toward these targets.

A duty should also be placed on every public body to show how it will support education, recruitment, and services through Irish.

Political Pressure

The Irish language movement already exists. Conradh na Gaeilge has more than 200 branches and describes itself as an all-island organization working on behalf of Irish speakers and Gaeltacht communities. An Dream Dearg has shown how a clear campaign based on language rights can bring the Irish language into the heart of the political debate.

In the North, An Dream Dearg helped turn language rights into a highly visible public campaign. It used clear demands, public mobilization, legal arguments, and political pressure. More than 12,000 people marched in Belfast in 2017 for an Irish Language Act. In 2022, more than 17,000 took part in An Lá Dearg after further delays in implementing Irish language legislation in the North.

The campaign did not get everything it was originally looking for, but it helped push real change forward. The Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 gave formal legal recognition to Irish in the North, created the role of the Irish Language Commissioner, and put important language protections into law. After many years of delay, the first Irish Language Commissioner was appointed in 2025.

Now, the same pressure is needed here regarding a complete revival plan for Irish: a legal right to Irish-medium education anywhere there is demand, strong national targets, proper funding for teacher training, more public services through Irish, supports in the workplace and the community, and the publication of an annual report.

Every candidate should be asked what their stance is regarding the Irish language. Every political party should be asked what its strategy is regarding the funding of the language. And every government should be judged by its actions, not by its speeches.

Ultimately, our votes should depend on those answers.

We know what needs to be done. Now it is time for us all to do it.

On May 14, 2026, the Oireachtas Education Committee heard two different versions of the state of Irish-medium education in Ireland.

Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton cited over €500 million spent on building projects for Irish-medium schools since 2020. She reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to expanding opportunities for children to receive an education through Irish.

Then, representatives from Conradh na Gaeilge, Gaeloideachas, An Foras Pátrúnachta, and the lobby group Imeasc spoke.

They described a system struggling with a continuous lack of supply, political reluctance, and official complacency.

Julian de Spáinn - General Secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge, the national organization that promotes the Irish language - used words like “emergency,” “crisis,” “critical situation,” and “pretense” to describe the state of Irish in the education system. He said the Department or the Minister would never give such an honest description, even though the facts are clearly visible.

Lack of Schools

There are not enough Irish-medium schools in the country. It is a language crisis, because the government has never treated the problem as a matter of urgency.

This failure is even more obvious when compared to the Government's own commitments. The previous Programme for Government promised to attempt to double the number of young people in Irish-medium schools and to provide Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí anywhere there was significant demand. Conradh na Gaeilge told the committee that the number of students in Irish-medium schools outside the Gaeltacht fell from 48,518 in 2019/20 to 46,933 in 2023/24.

At primary level, the evidence has been visible for years. Gaelscoileanna are overcrowded in much of the country. Parents are on waiting lists because there are not enough places. According to Conradh na Gaeilge, only 6.7 percent of primary school pupils outside the Gaeltacht attend Irish-medium primary schools. At the second level, that figure is just 2.6 percent.

Conradh na Gaeilge cited independent surveys showing that 49 percent of people would choose an Irish-medium education if it were available in their own area. In another survey, 78 percent said every child should have the opportunity to get an Irish-medium education if that is their choice. Another 73 percent said every child who receives primary education through Irish should have the opportunity to continue it at the second level. But Irish-medium education is treated as a marginal sector, rather than being a core part of the country's educational infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the situation gets even worse at secondary school level.

Thousands of children finish their primary education through Irish with no Gaelcholáiste available to them. According to the figures put before the committee, around 3,000 students every year are effectively prevented from being able to continue their education through Irish due to a lack of appropriate supply at the second level. Thirteen counties are still without even one Irish-medium secondary school.

Lack of Planning

Despite this, the Department of Education has indicated that it has no plans to establish any new Irish-medium secondary school between 2026 and 2031 outside areas of demographic growth. This position contradicts the will of the public.

The broader system is failing too.

Conradh na Gaeilge told the committee that more than 60,000 secondary school students have exemptions from Irish. In 2025, 24 percent of Leaving Certificate students did not sit any Irish exam. That was the fourth consecutive year that more than one in five avoided Irish in the Leaving Cert. At Junior Cycle level, 20 percent of students did not take an Irish exam, even though almost everyone sat English, math, and history.

The contrast becomes even sharper when this situation is put in the context of the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021. Under that legislation, the State has a target that 20 percent of new public service recruits will be proficient in Irish by the year 2030. The legislation places stronger duties on the government regarding the provision of public services through Irish, especially in the Gaeltacht areas.

Teachers, nurses, Gardaí, and civil servants do not become fluent in Irish without a proper education system.

That process starts at the pre-school level. It continues through primary school and secondary school. It depends on opportunities at third level. A clear long-term plan is essential.

No such plan exists at present. Instead, many children have no access to Irish-medium education at all. And for many of those who do get that opportunity, it is lost halfway through their education.

At the third level, the same pattern continues. Important work is underway in institutions like University of Galway and Maynooth University, but education through Irish is still limited in a large number of professional disciplines.

On the one hand, the State has passed legislation to create civil servants with Irish. On the other hand, it has failed to provide the necessary educational supports to fulfill that duty.

Wales — a role model

Wales has a smaller population than Ireland, and furthermore, it is part of a (larger) state where English is dominant. But about a quarter of Welsh schools operate through Welsh, a much higher percentage than Irish-medium schools in Ireland.

More importantly still, the Welsh Government has adopted clear national targets linked to legislation, teacher recruitment, and long-term educational planning. Their goal is to increase education through Welsh from 23 percent to 40 percent by 2050. In 2022, the Welsh Government announced 23 new Welsh schools and an expansion of the language's use in 25 other schools as part of that approach.

Northern Ireland – Overcoming the Difficulties

Northern Ireland provides an even more striking comparison.

Irish-medium education operates there in a much more difficult political environment. There is still strong opposition from some unionist and loyalist politicians. The language is frequently dragged into broader culture wars.

Despite that, the number of students in Irish-medium education in Northern Ireland has been increasing steadily over the last twenty years. Even within a divided political system, legal duties have been placed on authorities to encourage and facilitate Irish-medium education.

If progress is possible there, despite those political difficulties, it is hard to accept our own government's excuses anymore.

For many years, governments have been quite happy to pay lip service to the plight of the language, without suiting their actions to their words.

Therefore, the citizens of the country must put real political pressure on the Government to implement the will of the public.

In the next article, we will examine the steps that are necessary now.