Ireland has seen its largest 12-month increase in population since 2008, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said upon releasing its Population and Migration Estimates, April 2022 on Wednesday, August 24.

The population of Ireland increased by 88,800 persons in the 12 months to the end of April 2022, the largest 12-month increase since 2008, the CSO said on Wednesday.

Largest 12-month increase in population since 2008https://t.co/0OWskWPqD9#CSOIreland #Ireland #Population #PopulationEstimates #Migration #MigrationEstimates pic.twitter.com/jXQoANSPBU

— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) August 24, 2022

Bolstering the increase during that period were 120,700 immigrants, a 15-year high. Of those immigrants, 28,900 were returning Irish nationals, 24,300 were other EU nationals, and 4,500 were UK nationals. The remaining 63,000 immigrants were other nationals, including almost 28,000 Ukrainians in the 12-month period.  (As of August 7, there were 47,962 arrivals from Ukraine in Ireland.)

Close to 50% of immigrants were aged between 25-44 years, the CSO noted, while nearly 60% of immigrants had a third-level qualification.

More people emigrated from Ireland than in recent years with 59,600 persons departing the State, compared with 54,000 in 2021.

60,700 births and 33,000 deaths resulted in a natural increase of 27,700 people in the State during the period.

The CSO notes that preliminary results from the 2022 Census of Population reported a population of 5.12 million persons using the de facto definition of population, i.e. all persons present in the State on Census night. This differs by 23,300 from the population estimates contained in this week's CSO release which have been compiled using the usual residence concept. The CSO says it is planned to revise the usual residence estimates for the years 2017 to 2022 (i.e. the period between Censuses) following a thorough analysis of the final detailed Census results when they become available in 2023. 

Commenting on the CSO's newly-published data, Cathal Doherty, Statistician in Population Estimates and Projections, said on Wednesday: "Ireland's population was estimated to be 5.10 million, increasing by 88,800 persons in the year to April 2022. This was the largest 12-month population increase since 2008 when the population increased by 109,200.

“The number of immigrants, or those entering the State in the year to April 2022 is estimated to be 120,700, while the number of emigrants, or those leaving the State, over the same period is estimated at 59,600. These combined flows gave positive net migration (more people arrived than left), of 61,100 in the year to April 2022, compared with 11,200 in the previous year.

“The number of immigrants was the highest since the year to April 2007 and consisted of 28,900 returning Irish nationals, 24,300 other EU nationals, 4,500 UK nationals, and 63,000 other nationals including Ukrainians.

‘There were 768,900 persons living in Ireland aged 65 and over in April 2022. Those aged 65 and over had an increase in population share between 2016 and 2022, increasing from 13.3% to 15.1% of the total, a volume increase of 139,100 persons. 

“Looking at where people reside, the proportion of the population living in Dublin has increased from 27.6% of the total in 2011 to 28.4% of the total in 2022 and is now at 1,451,000 persons."