MORE than one in ten of the population of Ireland are non-Irish citizens according to the latest census figures.
A report released this week revealed there were almost 632,000 non-Irish citizens living in Ireland when the census was taken in 2022, which was 12 per cent of the population.
Almost 313,000 of those census respondents were citizens of European Union (EU) countries, and over 83,000 were UK citizens, the report confirms.
There were just over 100,000 citizens of Asian countries living in Ireland, which was 16 per cent of the non-Irish population.
More than 25,000 were citizens from non-EU European countries, a figure up 131 per cent since 2016, which the report claims was “largely driven by the crisis following the invasion of Ukraine”.
The figures also show that in the year preceding the census, over 89,500 people moved to Ireland.
Almost 10,000 of those came from India while over 5,000 came from Brazil.
A busy side street in the city of DublinCommenting on the results, Brendan Murphy, Statistician in the Census Division, said: “This report covers five separate topics resulting from questions on the census form and gives insights into the different citizenships living in Ireland, patterns of immigration in the year leading up to the census, ethnic group/background, Irish Travellers, and religion.
“A change for Census 2022 was the replacement of the nationality question with a country of citizenship question,” he added.
“As of Census night April 3, 2022, 12 per cent of the population were non-Irish citizens, with people from Poland and the UK making up the largest groups.
“The average age of the non-Irish population was 36, which is younger than the average age of the Irish population at 39, but it is worth noting that the average age for both groups is increasing.
“Some population groups are much younger though,” he explained.
“For example nearly 80 per cent of the 27,338 Brazilians living in Ireland on census night were aged between 23 and 43 compared with only 25 per cent of the Irish population in the same age bracket.”
The report released on October 26 details the census findings under Profile 5: Diversity, Migration, Ethnicity, Irish Travellers and Religion.
It revealed that more than 750,000 people speak a language other than English or Irish at home in Ireland , with the most commonly spoken languages being Polish, Romanian, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
The census collects data on people who have come to live in the State in the year leading up to the census which gives a breakdown of patterns of migration.
There was a 9 per cent increase in the number of people moving to Ireland in the year to Census night (03 April 2022), to more than 89,500 people compared with the same period leading up to Census 2016. One in four of the people moving to Ireland were Irish citizens.
The number of usually resident Irish Travellers in Ireland increased by 6 per cent to 32,949, the figures show.
They also reveal that more than 736,000 people, or 14 per cent of the population living in Ireland, identify as having no religion - an increase of 63 per cent from the census 2016 figures.
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