Percentages of Irish speakers in the Déise Gaeltacht have been falling
dramatically in recent years and a double-whammy effect has been cited as the
reason for this - there are more and more people moving in who cannot speak
Irish and most of the young people of house-buying age, ready to start a family,
are moving out because they have no hope of buying a site or a house due to
sky-high property prices.
With average house prices on estates nearing the 1 million euro mark and
with some having guide-prices of up to €900,000 – it would take 3 Gaeltacht
families to buy one house between them. This talk is not sabre-rattling, the
Irish language faces extinction as a living language in Waterford within 10-15
years if the current trend is not reversed immediately. We will only
realise the significance of this when it is far too late. Having first
introduced Irish-language-speaking conditions on planning permissions for
housing estates in the Déise Gaeltacht in 2003, in 2006, 3 years later, we know
of no system put in place to actually implement these conditions.
This is awful news.
Slán
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mo bhrón
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