Immigration to Ireland falls: census
County Donegal is one of two counties where the population has fallen.
The Irish Republic’s population has increased to more than 4.7 million but the number of non-Irish nationals fell during the last five years, according to the national census figures.
Census 2016 said the population was almost 4,762,000 in April last year, an increase of around 173,600 (3.8 per cent) since April 2011.
Only the western counties of Mayo and Donegal saw a fall in population.
Of the 82,350 people who moved to the Republic in the year to April 2016, around 28,140 were Irish nationals, mainly coming from Britain, Australia and the US.
Non-Irish immigrants made up 54,200 and their main countries of origin were Britain, Brazil and Poland.
Non-Irish nationals fell slightly to almost 535,500 or 11.6 per cent of Ireland’s population. It was the first decline since the question was introduced in 2002, while the number of people with dual-Irish nationality increased by almost 48,900 to 104,800 since in five years.
There were 6,000 same-sex couples, of whom 3,400 were male and 2,600 were female and 4,200 same-sex civil partnerships, the first time this category was recorded in a census.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said 468,400 said they had no religion, up from 269,800.
Those identifying as Catholic fell to 3,729,100 or 78.3 per cent, compared to 84.2 per cent in 2011.
The Irish traveller population increased by 5.1 per cent to 31,000 with the biggest percentage increases in counties Longford and Roscommon.
Almost 3,400 fewer speak Irish on a daily basis outside of schools with 78,800 saying they spoke Irish every day.
Around 37.6 per cent of the population was married and there were 97.8 males for every 100 females. The number of divorced people increased by 16,100 to 103,900.
The average age was 37, up from 36 years in 2011.
Men aged 65 and over increased by 22 per cent to 296,800 while women aged 65 and over increased by 16.7 per cent to 340,700.
Deirdre Cullen of the CSO said: “Today’s publication is the first of a series of 13 reports on Census 2016 that are due to be published this year.
“As well as the two summary reports, the CSO will publish 11 thematic profile releases, each of which will explore separate topics such as housing, the homeless, religion, disability and carers in greater detail.
“Together, these will provide a comprehensive demographic and socio-economic profile of Ireland in April 2016.”
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