The Gaeltacht is vital

There is a long history of people setting up Irish-speaking households and forming Irish-speaking networks outside the Gaeltacht. However, although only a quarter of Ireland's Irish-speakers live in the Gaeltacht, it is vital to the survival of the language. Most Irish-speakers in the Galltacht are people who learned it as a second language, or else grew up in the Gaeltacht. Shaping The Future (pxxiv) says "Outside of the Gaeltacht only about one-quarter of those who grew up in Irish language homes use Irish with the same intensity in their current homes".

The following table, based on surveys carried out by state bodies, shows clear majorities over a thirty year period agreeing on the importance of the Gaeltacht. The 1993 survey also shows a majority believing the government has the ability to revive the Gaeltacht. (All the evidence from surveys shows that the use of Irish is declining in the Gaeltacht, so the even split of opinion in 1993 over whether it was dying out is rather puzzling).

	1973		1983		1993
	Agree	Disagree	Agree	Disagree	Agree	Disagree
Gaeltacht areas are dying out	53	28	52	24	41	39
If the Gaeltacht dies out, Irish will die out also	60	33	64	29	62	32
No matter what the government does attempts to revive Irish are bound to fail	45	46	48	42	41	51
Source: CLAR 1975; Ó Riagáin & Ó Gliasáin 1984, 1994