Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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63. To ask the Taoiseach if he will outline the factors contributing to the increase in the population to five million as recently confirmed by the Central Statistics Office including the number of deaths and live births in each of the past five years; the number of returning Irish emigrants in each of the past five years and to compare this to the number of Irish emigrants in the same period; the number of asylum seekers in each of the past five years; and the number of refugees for each of the past five years. [38424/22]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Preliminary figures from the Census of Population 2022, indicated that the population of Ireland was 5,123,536. This figure reflected a population increase of 361,671 and was made up of a natural increase (births minus deaths) of 171,338 and estimated net inward migration (population change minus natural increase) of 190,333. This data is compiled on a de facto basis and represents the inter-censal change between 2016 and 2022. This is a preliminary count only and the processing of individual forms is now underway with an intention to publish final figures in the second quarter of 2023.

In addition, the CSO publishes an annual estimate of the usually resident population, in its Population and Migration Estimates publication and this publication contains a broad nationality breakdown. The latest figures available are for April 2021 and table 1 below show the number of immigrants and emigrants together with the broad breakdown by nationality, for April 2017 to April 2021. These figures will be subject to revision once the final figures from the Census of Population are available.

Table 1: Estimated Migration classified by Nationality, April 2017 to April 2021

¹EU14 excluding Irish: The EU countries before enlargement on 1 May 2004, excluding Ireland and UK.

²EU15 to EU27 states: The ten countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004, along with Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.

In addition, the CSO publishes, both annual and quarterly statistics on births and deaths that occur in Ireland. The CSO publishes provisional quarterly data based on the date the birth/death was registered with the General Register Office (GRO) for the relevant period within 5 months of the end of the reference period. In addition, a yearly summary is published, also based on registered births/deaths within 5 months of the end of the reference period. There is also a separate annual publication which is based on the date the birth/death occurred, within 22 months of the end of the reference period.

All births/deaths that occur in the State must be registered with the General Registration Office (GRO) no later than three months from the date of death. The registration of a death may be delayed where the death has been referred to a Coroner for investigation or inquiry. The registrations submitted to the GRO are transmitted electronically to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on a weekly basis.

Please see Table 2 below, detailing the number of births and deaths for the five-year period 2017 - 2021. This data is based on data for births and deaths registered in these years.

Table 2 - Number of births and deaths registered, 2017 - 2021

Figures for asylum applicants and resettled persons are not published by the CSO but are instead published by the Department of Justice and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Data, where available, for 2017 to 2021, are those figures previously supplied to Eurostat by the Departments and are included in table 3 below.

Asylum Applicants and Resettled Persons, 2017 to 2021

¹Collected by the Department of Justice and published by Eurostat (ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_asyappctza/default/table?lang=en).

²Collected by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and published by Eurostat (ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tps00195/default/table?lang=en).

: Data not available