Population increases despite 40,000 emigrating

IRELAND’S population increased last year thanks to having the EU’s highest number of births, lowest number of deaths, and in spite of about 40,000 emigrating.

There were over 75,000 births during the year — the most in Europe, while 29,000 died, giving the country a healthy natural population increase of more than 10%, the highest by far of any EU country.

However, this was balanced by the number of people leaving in response to the jobs crisis, resulting in a population increase of just 6,000 or 1.3%.