New figures released by the CSO show immigration to Ireland has reached a 17-year high, with 149,200 people arriving in the state in the 12 months to April.
The population in Ireland rose by 98,700 people which was the largest 12-month increase since 2008, the CSO said. The number of immigrants to the State in the year is estimated by the CSO to have grown by just over 5% to 149,200 from 141,600 when compared with 2023.
This was the third successive 12-month period where over 100,000 people immigrated to Ireland, the statistics office added. Of that number, 86,800 immigrants were citizens of non-EU countries, while 27,000 were other EU citizens, and 5,400 were UK citizens.
30,000 of those who arrived, or almost one in five, were returning Irish citizens. However, 69,000 people emigrated from Ireland in the 12 months to April, compared with 64,000 in the same period of 2023. Some 34,700 of those were Irish citizens going to live abroad, the CSO said.
The number of emigrants in the 12 months to April 2024 was the highest since the year to April 2015 and consisted of 34,700 Irish citizens, 10,600 other EU citizens, 3,000 UK citizens, and 21,500 other citizens including Ukrainians.
The figures also show that 10,600 people left Ireland to live in Australia, up from 4,700 last year.
The CSO data also pointed to an ageing population with a declining birth rate. There was a natural increase of 19,400 people in the State comprised of 54,200 births and 34,800 deaths, the CSO said. This contrasts to 68,954 births in 2013.
There were 833,300 people living in Ireland aged 65 and over in April 2024 – and increase of 156,800 persons since 2018. “Those aged 65 and over showed an increase in population share between 2018 and 2024 (increasing from 13.8% to 15.5% of the total),” the CSO said.
The figures also showed a corresponding fall in the number of young people aged under 14. “There were more than a million (1,010,300) people living in Ireland aged 0-14 in April 2024. This age group had a fall in population share between 2018 and 2024, falling from 20.8% to 18.8% of the total population, a volume decrease of 4,100”.
In April, estimates show there were 55,500 children aged under 12 months in Ireland, down by 19,400 from 2010.
The proportion of the population living in Dublin has also risen from 28.1% of the total in 2018 to 28.5% of the total in 2024 and now stands at 1,534,900 people.
Independent TD Carol Nolan said that the sharp rise in immigration was “totally unsustainable” and that the record levels of inward migration would “inevitably bring the capacity of the state to provide even minimal services to a screeching halt”.
“No state can cope with these numbers during an infrastructure and housing crisis. It is therefore almost inevitable, if completely foreseeable, that we are heading toward the precipice of a multi-systems failure as the annual burden of inward migration numbers shows no signs of abating,” Deputy Nolan said.