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Just 6.3% of Gaeilgeoirí speak Irish on a weekly basis

Census figures have revealed where the most Irish speakers are in the country.

[image alt="Profile_10_Education,_Skills_and_the_Irish_-_Final_900_x_525" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2017/11/profile_10_education_skills_and_the_irish_-_final_900_x_525-296x172.png" width="296" height="172" title="" class="alignnone" /end]

JUST 6.3% of Gaeilgeoirí speak Irish on a weekly basis, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The statistics released today show that 39.8% of the population claim to be able to speak Irish).

In April 2016, 1,761,420 people (aged three and over) said they could speak Irish. This was a slight decline of 0.7% on 2011.

Unsurprisingly, Galway County recorded the highest percentages of people able to speak Irish at 49%, followed by Clare (45.9%), Cork County (44.9%) and Mayo (43.9%).

In contrast, the lowest percentages were in Dublin City at 29.2%, followed by Louth and South Dublin (both 34.1%) and Cavan at 34.6%.

[image alt="Capture" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2017/11/capture-1046-296x324.jpg" width="296" height="324" title="" class="alignnone" /end]

Of the 39.8% of people who said they could speak Irish, almost one in four (23.8%) indicated that they never spoke it. A further 31.7% said that they only spoke it within the education system.

Among the remaining group, 33.3% spoke Irish less often than weekly, while 6.3%, or 111,473 people, spoke it weekly.

The number of people speaking Irish on a daily basis stood at 73,803, representing 1.7% of the population. This was down by 4.4% on 2011.

While Dublin City had the lowest percentage of Irish speakers overall, it had the largest number of daily speakers with 14,903 people, up from 14,229 in 2011. This represents 20.2% of all daily speakers.

Cork, Galway and Limerick combined had 6,304 daily speakers. After the cities, the largest number of daily speakers were in An Bun Beag-Doirí Beaga (771), followed by Letterkenny (525) and Swords (487).

Education and skills

The CSO also released statistics regarding education and skills.

It found that, of those aged 15 and over in April 2016, 42% had a third-level qualification, compared with 13.6% in 1991.

Looking at people aged 20, Census 2016 shows that those with parents with higher levels of educational attainment were more likely to still be in education. Overall, 60.6% of all 20-year-olds in family units were still students in 2016.

Among those whose parents were educated at the most lower secondary level, 44.9% were full-time students, increasing to 65.2% for those with both parents educated to upper secondary level.

For those 20-year-olds with both parents having a degree, 87.5% were full-time students.

The numbers of doctorates in Ireland has continued to increase, according to the latest statistics.

The 28,759 people who said they had a doctorate (PhD) level qualification was an increase of 30.9% on the 2011 figure and up 99.5% on 2006.

Read: Ireland has only recovered by 41% from the recession

More: Small towns ‘hit hardest’ in the past 10 years, Dublin least affected

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    Mute Tony Skillington
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    Feb 22nd 2012, 3:01 PM

    This would be great if we did sign up. Our company would save three or four thousand euro a year by not having to submit accounts…money I’d gladly reinvest in even part time employment for someone.
    Over to you Mr Noonan…

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    Mute Chuck Farrelly
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    Feb 22nd 2012, 5:16 PM

    Exactly, small businesses aren’t going to hoard any money they make – they’ll put it all back into circulation one way or another

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    Mute jrbmc
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    Feb 22nd 2012, 3:12 PM

    Yea…” sign the contract” ! “Sign the contract” Enda !!!

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    Mute SeanNorris
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    Feb 22nd 2012, 6:31 PM

    this is good news. without knowing the. details it appears that it will have 3 benefits. it will lift most small companies out of the requirement for an audit. this will translate to a cost saving probably not in the magnitude tony expressed but a saving nevertheless. The other benefit is that it will remove from public record your accounts. as regards implementation there is a companies bill somewhere in the govt. work program so hopefully this will find its way onto it.

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    Mute William Grogan
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    Feb 22nd 2012, 10:08 PM

    Great news.

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    Mute Irish Architecture
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    Feb 23rd 2012, 1:15 AM

    This would be a wonderful development. It is ridiculous to be paying accountants to show the govt you don’t need to pay tax. It’s an utter waste of money and a heavy burden on small business.

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