Minister for Education Joe McHugh has said he wants to see a doubling of the number of students being educated through Irish.
Mr McHugh has announced plans to develop a new policy to encourage the growth of Irish medium education over the next ten years.
The policy will provide a framework for the delivery of high-quality Irish medium education in schools and early-years settings outside the Gaeltacht.
The minister said the work will be informed by national and international research into good practice in other countries or jurisdictions such as Wales or Quebec, as well as the initial findings of a research and evaluation study on Gaeltacht Schools.
The minister is to convene a special consultation process in the spring. He has requested that any consultation includes the voice of students and parents.
The policy will be developed in collaboration with other relevant departments including the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
Almost 60,000 students in Ireland are currently in Irish-medium education, with just over 45,500 at primary level and a further 13,500 at second level.
The figures represent a numeric increase on ten years ago.
However, with rising demographics over the past decade, the proportion of students receiving their education through Irish has actually fallen.
The fall is slight at primary level - 6.9% of children now receive their primary education through Irish, compared to 7.1% in 2009.
It is more pronounced at second level.
In 2009, 3.7% of post primary students attended Irish medium schools, but this has now fallen to 2.7%.
Areas to be examined in the development of the new policy include a new approach to the development of naíonrí (Irish language pre-schools), with the possibility of building them beside gaelscoileanna (Irish language primary schools) or strengthening their links with local gaelscoileanna.
The minister said: "Naíonraí and Irish-medium schools play a vital role in developing identity and fluency in our language.
"The benefits of full immersion in early years and in school are internationally recognised both for a child's holistic development and also for acquiring the aptitude for other languages."
Work on developing the new policy will be overseen by an inter-departmental steering committee.
The minister said the process would look closely at creating a clear policy on the establishment of aonaid lán-Ghaeilge (Irish medium units) in existing schools, and also the establishment of new gaelscoileanna, gaelcholáistí (Irish secondary schools) and aonaid lán-Ghaeilge as part of the new patronage process.
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The possibility of offering incentives to attract students from Gaeltacht areas into teaching will also be examined, as will ways of increasing the supply of people with a high standard of Irish to work in Irish medium education settings.
Irish is one of a number of areas where second level schools are experiencing a significant shortage of qualified teachers.
Earlier this year a Dublin school received just one application for three full-time Irish teaching positions that it advertised.
Mr McHugh said the new policy for Irish-medium education would raise the profile of the language in communities, and he believed it would also encourage the daily use of Irish inside and outside schools.
