At the same time, almost 41pc of births were outside of marriage, an increase from last year.

Commenting on the figures, Seán O’Connor of the CSO said: “we can see the number of births has decreased by 1,002 (or 6.9%) when compared with the same quarter in the previous year, down from 14,449 in Q2 2022 to 13,447 in Q2 2023.

“Births to mothers aged less than 20 fell from 222 in Q2 2022 to 176 in Q2 2023. The average age of mothers was 33.3 years in Q2 2023, up slightly from 33.2 reported in the same quarter in 2022, while 10 years ago, the average age was 32.2 years for the same period.

“More than two in five (40.9%) births were outside of marriage/civil partnership, compared with the same quarter a year earlier when 44.2% of births were to mothers outside of marriage. Ten years ago, in Q2 2013, this proportion was more than one in three (34.0%) births.”