Ireland has ‘by far’ largest proportion of children

Ireland has “by far” the largest percentage of children in its population in the European Union and will continue to do so for the next 35 years, it has been found.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office has compiled a series of reports on the numbers and activities of children across the continent.

It found that at 22%, Ireland had what it said was by far the largest proportion of children in its population in 2014. The next nearest percentage was France with 18.6% and Britain at 17.6%. At the other end of the scale, 13.9% of Italy’s population was aged under-15 years and in Germany the proportion was 13.1%. The report found that in Ireland there were 1.013 million children under-15 last year. That had risen from 903,000 in 1994 which at that point accounted for 25.2% of the population.