Ireland has highest birth rate in the EU

Ireland’s performance at eurozone, Eurovision, and European Championship level may be underwhelming — but we are top of the Euroclass in one discipline — making more of ourselves.

Latest figures from the EU’s central statistics body, Eurostat, shows we had the highest birth rate of all 28 member countries in 2014.

According to Eurostat, we had 14.4 births last year for every 1,000 residents — much higher than the 10.1 European average and almost double the sluggish Portugese who were bottom of the table with just 7.9 per 1,000.