Population grows by almost a million in 30 years

IRELAND’S population has increased by close to a million in the past three decades while women are still outliving men by almost five years.

Of all births, 30% are to single mothers, compared with 6% in 1984, and the most popular babies’ names in 2003 were Seán and Emma.

These are among some of the more striking facts contained in the Statistical Yearbook of Ireland 2004, published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office.

The CSO also reveals the number of those at work has risen by just over 50% since 1993, up from under 1.2 million to nearly 1.8 million in 2003.

However, the cost of living has also gone up. The average price of a house has risen from the equivalent of €102,222 in 1997 to €224,567 in 2003.

The number of new houses granted planning permission was 67% higher in 2003 than in 1997. In the same period, planning permissions for new apartments more than trebled.

Home ownership in Ireland remains very high, with over 75% of private dwellings in the State being owner-occupied in 2003.

Of the 244,800 householders in owner-occupied dwellings purchased since 1996, 24% had monthly mortgage repayments in excess of €600 in the third quarter of 2003.

Almost 50% of house purchasers between 1996 and 2003 were first-time buyers.

General purchasing power has also declined sharply. A pint of stout is now 25% more expensive than it was in 1994 while the price of energy products increased by 6.2% in 2003 alone. However, general affluence is reflected in the fact that visits abroad by Irish residents are up 30% since 2000. Other statistics show that greenhouse gas emissions increased by 29% from 1990 to 2002. New private cars licensed for the first time in 2003 were down by 5% on 2002. Driving tests conducted in 2002 totalled 148,983, with an overall pass rate of 54%.

The yearbook also shows that GNP increased by an annual average of 2.2% in the past two years, in contrast to average growth of 7.7% in real terms in the previous eight years. Since 1990, the national debt as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 87.7% to 27.9% in 2003.

The yearbook provides information on a wide range of topics, including the population, labour force, the economy, agriculture, and the weather.

The full text of the yearbook is available free of charge on the CSO website at www.cso.ie/principalstats/yearbook2004. A hard copy may be purchased from The Central Statistics Office, Skehard Road, Cork, or Government Publications Molesworth Street, Dublin 2.