Bishop Denis Nulty warned that the decline in marriages is a concern not only for the Church but for the wider society. He said the cost of housing is now the "biggest obstacle" facing young couples preparing for marriage in Ireland.

Professor Ronan Lyons of Daft.ie backed up his comments, stating: "We’re looking at a boomerang generation who have left their family homes only to return because they can’t afford a house or to get married."

Bishop Nulty, head of the Accord Catholic Marriage Care Service, said: "The Central Statistics Office figures show the number of people in Ireland getting married has gone down.

"Marriage is good for the State. It shows a commitment a couple have to one another, and if we have fewer getting married, that’s not good for the State, that’s not good for the stability of society."

Bishop Denis Nulty.

The scale of the decline was highlighted in a separate Iona Institute report – "On the Wrong Course: Birth, Marriage and Family Trends in Ireland" – which showed that Ireland’s marriage rate has fallen from 5.2 marriages per 1,000 adults in 2004 to 3.6 last year, below the EU average of 4.

This is proportionately lower than in the 1970s as the population now exceeds 5.4 million. The report says Ireland is recording its lowest ever marriage rate.

In 2025, there were 19,898 marriages in Ireland. The figure marked a decline of almost 3,000 on the 2022 figure when 22,555 marriages took place. The year that recorded the highest number of marriages was 1920 when 27,193 weddings took place at a time when the population in the 26 counties was just 3.1 million.

The report says Ireland is recording its lowest ever marriage rate.

CSO figures show that the average age of a man getting married in Ireland today is 37.7 years while the corresponding figure for a woman is 35.9 years. Bishop Nulty of Kildare and Leighlin said the State should ‘invest in supporting marriage’.

Asked what pressures are weighing most heavily on couples, he said: "I can assure you the biggest obstacle to couples getting married today is housing. It’s huge. Couples are facing pressure from mortgages, housing lists, jobs, finances and family life. There’s demands going in every direction for a couple.

"There’s financial concerns as well because there’s pressure. There’s pressure for jobs and there’s pressure for all of those things. But housing I think is the big one."

The housing crisis has caused the marriage rate to fall to its lowest recorded level outside the pandemic years.

Bishop Nulty told the Irish Catholic that, alongside support from the State, the Church must also do more to accompany couples beyond the wedding day.

He said: "Couples need support in the early years of marriage. It’s not just getting married, it’s actually, it’s lonely after the wedding."

He added that the Catholic Church should be more focused on the difficulties that young married couples face as they enter into life as a married unit, and the considerable additional costs incurred when children arrive, stating: "We in the Church need to learn how to accompany couples better."

Limerick TD Conor Sheehan, Labour Party spokesman on housing, said the emerging statistics are a worrying trend for the future of the country.

Limerick TD Conor Sheehan, Labour Party spokesman on housing.

"Young people are delaying key life milestones because the average monthly rent in Dublin alone is €2,400. A lot of people are having to move back in with their parents while in their 20s and early 30s to try and save a deposit.

"The median age [at which most people purchase a house] is now 35 and if you go back to 2000, 60% of first-time buyers were under 30. Some of my own friends are putting off buying a house because they can’t even countenance paying for a wedding on top of that."

Mr Sheehan added that if the Government doesn’t sort something out soon, the long-term implications for future Irish generations and society as a whole, will be detrimental for growth in the economy.

"We’ve already seen a demographic shift and declining birth rate which is likely to get worse in the next 20 to 30 years. As it is, our society is ageing, and young couples are delaying having children because they do not have the physical space to raise a child or a stable tenancy.

~"This is going to lead to a situation whereby the workforce is going to shrink, we’re going to have massive pressure on the health service as the ageing population engage moreso with the HSE, and also funding pensions as more people grow older while there is a decline in the number of young people to grow the workforce."

Why Irish fear their children will have a lower standard of living than they do
Professor Ronan Lyons told Extra.ie there is definitely a change in trends occurring in the country when it comes to patterns and the way young people now prepare to purchase a property.

"We [at Daft.ie] worked with the Housing Commission and we discovered that there is a huge gap in how people live and how they would like to live.

"More and more young people are living with friends and parents but would much rather live with a partner. The scale of this is pretty huge and that housing deficit is about 250,000 homes in a country of two million homes.

"We’re looking at a boomerang generation who have left their homes only to return because they can’t afford a house or get married."

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.