evidence: A summary report of the findings shows the number of people who indicated that they could speak Irish increased by 6 per cent between 2016 and last year to 1.9 million, or 40 per cent of the population aged three or more. Of the people who said they could speak Irish, almost 624,000 spoke it daily within and outside the education system. This accounts for 33 per cent of the Irish speaking population, compared with 36 per cent in 2016. A total of almost 72,000 of the daily speakers used Irish outside the education system, down 1,835 on the 2016 figure. [...] A majority (55 per cent) of people who indicated that they spoke Irish reported that they did not speak the language well. Younger people were more likely to say could speak the language well.