Two out of five people in Ireland claim they can speak Irish but the numbers able to use the “cúpla focal” are falling.

The latest census figures show that a total of 1,761,420 adults and children, or 39.8 per cent of the population, said that they could speak Irish.

The 2016 census form merely asked people if they could speak Irish with a simple “yes” or “no” option and how often they used the language, but did not elicit information on proficiency. There are more than 13,000 fewer Irish speakers now than at the time of the previous census in 2011, a fall of about 1 per cent.

Almost a quarter of those who said they could speak Irish admitted never using the language and