Irish Examiner view: Changing face of society

The CSO's annual snapshot of Irish life brings verifiable figures into play to either support or demolish our impressions and hunches

The CSO’s surveys found that 76% of those in shared rented accommodation believe they will never own their own home in Ireland.

In the modern world data is king — from sports to politics, entertainment to industry, hard facts and figures cannot be contradicted, and the day of vague impressions and personal hunches is out.

The Central Statistics Office’s annual snapshot of Irish life is a case in point, bringing verifiable figures into play to either support or demolish the impressions and hunches mentioned above.

An obvious example is the anecdotal suggestion that the primacy of church weddings is being overtaken by civil ceremonies; that’s explained in black and white by the CSO, which tells us Catholic ceremonies accounted for 40% of opposite-sex weddings, but that figure was closely followed by civil ceremonies at 34%.

Social changes

The arrival of Ukrainians fleeing the war in the east is itemised — there were 62,425 such arrivals by November — but the effect of other social changes can be traced through the details.

It will come as no surprise, for instance, that one of the CSO’s surveys found that 76% of those in shared rented accommodation believe they will never own their own home in Ireland.

That is surely linked to another finding: That 57% of respondents aged 18 to 29 were considering emigration.

Is the accommodation crisis also responsible for the fact that brides and grooms are getting older and older (with
the average age 35.4 and 37.4 years respectively), as people defer life decisions when they don’t have housing security?

The statistics are valuable on two levels, then: They inform us directly about the Ireland we live in, and invite us to examine why it has become the Ireland we live in.