557. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht the estimated cost of recruiting a full-time language planning officer for each local authority area in the State. [46656/26]

The recruitment of Irish language officers in local authorities is solely a matter for the local authorities themselves; my Department has no role in such recruitment or in the expenditure involved in same.

The Deputy may be aware of the Gaeilge365 initiative which my Department is supporting for the period 2025-2028. Gaeilge365 was established to achieve a structural transformation in the daily use of Irish in services provided by Dublin’s four local authorities, in line with the 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language.

The main objectives of the initiative are:

• normalising the use of Irish in public services through a structural increase in usage opportunities from 6,000 to over 150,000 by 2028;

• developing and scaling 24+ reusable service models across different public services;

• creating an innovation pipeline (12 pilots in 2025, 24 by 2026);

• developing internal leaders through a developmental approach, supporting them to create new projects based on their potential;

• enabling the effective implementation of national legislation and plans for the Irish language;

• building an Irish language ecosystem across councils, services and communities, in line with national policies.

My Department is providing funding of up to €2,274,630 for the initial four year cycle of the Gaeilge365 initiative. Combined matching funding is provided by the four Dublin local authorities.

The Programme for Government contains a commitment to expand the Gaeilge365 initiative to all local authorities during the term of the current Government. However, prior to taking steps to fulfil this commitment, an evaluation of its impact in the four Dublin local authorities will be required. In order to fully inform this evaluation through the use of learning from the Dublin initiative, it is not envisaged that said evaluation will be carried out until the latter half of 2027 at the earliest.