Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together.

The preliminary report of the 2006 census, carried out on Sunday, 23 April 2006, was published on 19 July 2006. The report was compiled using headcount information compiled by each of the 4,400 enumerators based on the completed census forms for their respective enumeration areas. The following were the highlights of the preliminary census results.

The population of the State increased by 318,000 persons between 2002 and 2006 to reach the highest recorded census level since 1861. The preliminary total for the population enumerated on census night 23 April 2006 was 4,234,925 persons, compared with 3,917,203 in April 2002, representing an increase of 8.1% in four years or 2% per annum. On average there were 46,000 more immigrants than emigrants annually over the 2002-06 period, compared with an annual excess of births over deaths of 33,000.

Looked at from a ten-year perspective, Ireland's population increased at an annual average rate of 1.6% between 1996 and 2006, the largest population growth rate in the EU. The populations of Fingal and Meath both increased by over one fifth between 2002 and 2006. The counties of Kildare, Fingal and Meath accounted for 30% of the national increase in population. Other Leinster counties which showed large increases were Laois, 14%, Wexford, 12.9%, Offaly,10.9%, Westmeath, 10.5%, and Wicklow, 10.2%. Apart from Fingal, there was a relatively modest increase of just 20,000 in the rest of Dublin and, as a result, the overall population grew by just 5.65%, considerably less than the 8.1% increase for the State as a whole. The population of Leitrim grew by almost 12% between 2002 and 2006. This followed a modest increase of 3% between 1996 and 2002, which was remarkable in that it occurred after continuous declines in population over the previous century and a half.

At electoral division, ED, level, Blanchardstown-Blakestown in Fingal recorded the highest increase in intercensal population — up 7,901 to 32,305 in April 2006. Other EDs with population increases in excess of 5,000 during 2002-06 were Navan rural in Meath, up 5,176, in Meath and Balbriggan rural in Fingal, up 5,150.

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