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Population up as immigration hits 15-year high

Official figures show that the State’s population recorded the biggest annual increase since 2008 in the year to April 2022.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) also said that the level of immigration in the 12-month period was the highest since 2007.

The population increased by 88,800 to an estimated 5.1 million in April this year, while 120,700 people entered the State in the year to April.

When account is taken of the 59,600 who left in the previous 12 months, the CSO said that there was positive net migration of 61,100 in the year to April 2022, compared with 11,200 in the previous year.

Natural increase

The number arriving in the country was up 85% compared with a year earlier, with the arrival of Ukrainians significantly impacting the figures. The number of people leaving the State also increased, by 10%.

The number of immigrants consisted of 28,900 returning Irish nationals, 24,300 other EU nationals, 4,500 UK nationals, and 63,000 other nationals – including Ukrainians.

The rest of the rise in population came from a natural increase of 27,700, as there were 60,700 births and 33,000 deaths during the 12-month period.

The CSO figures also show that there were 768,900 people aged 65 and over living in Ireland in April 2022. Their share of the population has increased to just over 15% – up from 13.3% in 2016.

The proportion of the population living in Dublin has increased from 27.6% of the total in 2011 to 28.4% of the total in 2022.

The CSO points out that there is a slight difference between the population figure reported today (24 August) and the Census 2022 figure, due to the different criteria used to compile the figures.

Big Q1 increase in births

Separate CSO figures for the first three months of 2022 show a big increase in births compared with the same period last year.

Births rose by just over 16% to 16,131, while the number of deaths fell marginally to 9.535. Marriages jumped by more than 40% to 3,205.

The proportion of births outside of marriage or civil partnership continues to increase, rising from just over 40% a year earlier to 43.6% in the first quarter of 2022.

There were 641 deaths due to COVID-19 in the three-month period, representing 6.7% of all deaths.

Deaths due to cancer and circulatory disease were the biggest causes of death, with these categories combined accounting for 55.8% of all deaths.

Caution urged on suicide figures

There were 277 deaths due to accidents, suicides and other external causes in the first three months of this year.

The number of suicides (73) more than doubled compared with a year earlier, but the CSO warned that these figures were likely to have been affected by the impact of COVID-19 restrictions, which prevented public hearings at the Coroner’s Court during certain periods.

All unnatural deaths – including deaths from intentional self-harm – must be referred to the Coroner's Office.

The CSO adds that such deaths are likely to be under-represented, as further investigation can result in their being registered late.