CSO predictions:THE POPULATION will return to its pre-Famine peak of 6.5 million within 25 years if recent trends of high net immigration and relatively high fertility rates are maintained, Deirdre Cullen, a senior statistician at the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said yesterday.
In the decade to 2016, the numbers resident in the State are projected to rise by one million to 5.23 million on similarly strong migration and fertility assumptions, according to the CSO's Population and Labour Force Projections 2011-2041, published yesterday. The 2006 Census enumerated the population at 4.23 million.
A continuance of current demographic trends would see the population reach 5.69 million by 2021, an increase of almost one and a half million on the 2006 population. At this projected level, the numbers in the State would have doubled since 1961, when the population fell to its lowest point at 2.82 million.
The pace of future population growth in the decades ahead will be dictated largely by migration trends, Aidan Punch, director of the census at the CSO, pointed out yesterday. In the absence of any net immigration in the intervening years, the population would reach only 4.76 million by 2021.
Thus, the continuance of current high levels of net immigration would add more than 900,000 to the population by 2021.
The most salient feature of Ireland's demographic structure as it evolves over the decades ahead will be the growth in the older population. In 2006, the Census enumerated 462,000 people aged 65 years and over and they comprised just 11 per cent of the national population. Irrespective of migration trends, the population aged 65 and over will exceed 750,000 by 2021.
The older population is projected to range between 1.3 million and 1.4 million by 2041, when those aged 65 and over will make up between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of the national population.
The key factors accounting for this structural shift are the ageing of the existing population and increasing longevity. There have been substantial gains in life expectancy in Ireland over the past two decades. Between 1986 and 2005, life expectancy at birth increased by 5.7 years for men and 4.9 years for women due principally to improved living conditions and better medical care.
Further advances are expected in the decades ahead. The CSO projects that the life expectancy at birth for men will improve from 76.7 years in 2005 to 86.5 years for those born in 2041. Life expectancy at birth for women is projected to lengthen from 81.5 years in 2005 to 88.2 years in 2041.
At the other end of the age spectrum, the number of births has been increasing and has exceeded 60,000 consistently in recent years. This will increase the demand for primary school places in the years ahead.
The CSO projects that the population of primary school-going children will increase by at least 10 per cent over the next decade, even in the absence of any net immigration. However, if net immigration continues at close to current levels, then the number of primary school children could increase from 450,000 in 2006 to 650,000 by 2025.