Early results from the 2016 Census show that the population of the state has increased by 3.7% since 2011, up from 4,588,000 to 4,758,000, an increase of  170,000.

A net figure of 28,000 people left the country during the five years since the last Census. Net migration is calculated as the residual of the total population increase of 169,700 less natural increase of 198,300. This compares with net inward migration of 115,800 over the previous five years.

Net migration varied widely across Ireland, from a low of -6,731 in Donegal to a high of 7,257 in Dublin City. Dublin City and Cork City (4,380), along with the administrative area of Dún Laoghaire Rathdown (4,066), were the only areas to experience net inflows of any meaningful amount, while Fingal (875), Laois (285), Longford (178) and Kilkenny (127) showed marginal increases.

Population change varied widely across the country, ranging from an increase of over 8% in Fingal to a fall in numbers of 1.5% in Donegal. Among the fastest growing counties were the four administrative areas of Dublin, along with the commuter belt counties of Meath, Kildare and Laois and the cities of Cork and Galway.

While most counties experienced some level of population growth, three counties witnessed population decline over the five years — Donegal (-1.5%), Mayo (-0.2%) and Sligo (-0.1%).

In Association with

The figures released by the CSO also show first results on housing and vacant dwellings and indicate that the number of occupied houses has increased by 49,285 since April 2011 while the number of vacant dwellings has fallen by 29,889.

Brendan Murphy of the CSO explained: “While the number of holiday homes has increased marginally (up 1,809) the number of other vacant dwellings has decreased by almost 14% since April 2011, or 31,700 units. These falls can be seen right across Ireland, with the largest falls in Carlow and Dublin.

“Full details of total housing, holiday homes and other vacant dwellings are now available on the CSO website in an interactive map, and we’d encourage the public to log on and check out the results for their area.”

Apart from the interactive dwellings map, the preliminary results are also available from the CSO website.