Irish people believe the Catholic Church will decline further over the next decade, and so will marriage.

These are just two of the findings of a newly released survey of Irish attitudes.

The ‘Future of Ireland’ study was undertaken by the OMD media agency with the backing of Ulster Bank and was based on conversations with over 1,000 Irish people on a range of issues.

Fully 60% said they believed marriage may be less important over the coming years, but that Irish people will continue to strongly value family and relationships. The study found that 51% of people now include friends in their definition of family, a figure which rises to 71% for those under 25. A further 43% of expect their family relationships to have improved by 2025.

However, the study also reveals that while just 20% of people think family life in Ireland is better today than in 2005, 35% think it is not. Similarly, just 22% think Irish people look out for each other more than a decade ago, versus 43% who disagree with that.

Meanwhile, on the issue of traditional institutions and their influence on Irish life, while most respondents see little or no change in the impact of national and local government, 75% said they expect the influence of the Catholic Church to have declined further by 2025. This was a far greater proportion that those – at 40% – who envisaged, in an age of social media, a decline in influence of traditional media, such as RTÉ and daily newspapers. However, 53% of respondents stated their belief that it will be foreign companies, and countries like Germany and China, who will have more influence on daily life in Ireland by 2025.

Read the report at: http://www.futureofireland.ie/