Since the early 1990s there has been a steady decline in the take-up of physics among upper second-level students in Ireland. By 2004 only 14% of leaving certificate students were enrolled in physics, compared to 20% a decade earlier. The decline is even more marked in the case of chemistry. To date, Ireland's national policy of targeting and facilitating inward investment by the high-tech multinational sector has been particularly successful and has led to the rapid and sustained growth of the Irish economy. A key factor here has been the country's capacity to provide a continued supply of highly educated science, engineering and technology graduates, at all levels. However, this skilled and discipline-focussed human resource can no longer be guaranteed, given the noticeable decline of interest in science throughout the Irish education system. The same disturbing trend has also been evident in other first-world economies and has excited considerable concern and analysis.In this paper, we present an analysis of the main factors responsible for the decline in the take-up of physics at second level in Ireland. The database underpinning the analysis is based on a comprehensive survey of opinion in Irish second level schools conducted in December 2004. The sample was all such schools in Ireland (n = 742) and was directed at school principals, senior cycle physics teachers, and junior cycle science teachers. Three distinct questionnaires were circulated to each school with a view to collecting background information on the school in question, the adequacy of teaching and learning resources including laboratory facilities, teachers' professional qualifications, teachers' views on the suitability of the syllabus, on the teaching of physics, on the minimum level of mathematics necessary to cope with physics, and on the attitudes of students to physics and their awareness of career opportunities in physics. Other topics probed included gender issues, students' perception of physics as being a demanding subject, and related concerns regarding the achievement of maximal leaving certificate points.The data reveal that a majority of senior cycle physics teachers in Ireland do not possess a professional qualification in physics, are dissatisfied with the standard of the laboratory facilities and technical back-up available to them and their students, feel the syllabus should be revised to make it more attractive to students and more relevant to today's world, consider the mathematics requirement for physics to be too demanding, believe their students are not adequately informed about career opportunities in physics, and are disadvantaged in regard to grade points in the leaving certificate examination compared to most other subjects. These findings corroborate many of those of a previous study by a Government Task Force on the Physical Sciences (1) and lend renewed urgency to the necessity of implementing a comprehensive action programme to reverse the decline referred to above. Specifically, state investment of considerable scale must be committed to the expansion and upgrading of laboratory facilities and technical support for physics at second level, more professionally-qualified physicists must be attracted into teaching at this level, grade point differentials between subjects must be eliminated, and guidance counselling in relation to the role and importance of physics in society must be refocused and expanded, with much greater emphasis on the latter than hitherto.(1) Report and Recommendations of the Task Force on the Physical Sciences (2002). 197pp. http://www.sciencetaskforce.ie/report