While the overall figures would suggest that Irish is in a healthy state, studies in the last two years have found that, despite the resources spent on the national language, its daily use is in danger in many parts of the Gaeltacht.

Figures from 2002 found that 1.57 million Irish residents aged three or over could speak Irish.

Of this figure, a quarter said they spoke it on a daily basis.

However, detailed breakdowns of the figures highlight some major issues that indicate that the majority of adults in this country rarely speak the language.

The majority of those, 76 per cent, who said they spoke Irish daily were school children.

Over two-thirds of those who said they could speak Irish said they never spoke it or spoke it less than once a week. This rose to 87 per cent in the case of those aged 20 years and over.

The evidence suggests that the use of Irish is continuing to decline in Gaeltacht areas.

The number of Irish speakers in these areas who spoke the language on a daily basis declined from 60 per cent in 1996 to 55 per cent in 2002.

A quarter of the Irish-speaking population in the Gaeltacht spoke Irish less than weekly, while 7.4 per cent spoke it rarely or never at all.

A study last year based on the 2002 census figures suggested that if new criteria being proposed for the redrawing of Gaeltacht boundaries were used the Gaeltacht would shrink dramatically.

Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology lecturer Donncha Ó hEallaithe, carried out the study for Nuacht TG4. It was based on the fact that Irish was spoken less than daily by 70 per cent of the population in Gaeltacht areas.

He found that the current Gaeltacht area of 90,000 people would shrink to 27,000 if criteria for such status proposed two years ago by Coimisiún na Gaeltachta were applied.

Under these criteria Gaeltacht status would be applied to areas in which at least 50 per cent of the population of the district electoral division used Irish daily.

Last week a major study of Gaeltacht schools found that 10 per cent of their pupils were leaving school with little or no Irish. The report, commissioned by the Educational Council for Gaeltacht Schools, found that English was now the main conversational language among pupils in Gaeltacht schools.

The study found that a quarter of pupils leaving Gaeltacht primary schools had only a reasonable level of Irish. At Leaving Cert level 18 per cent had a reasonable level, and 10 per cent had little or no Irish.