The number of families in Ireland with no children has jumped by 14pc between Census 2016 and last year, according to new census figures released by the CSO. In addition, the average number of children per family unit has dropped from 1.82 in 1996, to just 1.34 in 2022. These findings are in line with falling fertility rates in Ireland.

The figures are contained in the ‘Households, Families and Childcare’ section of Census 2022 published yesterday by the Central Statistics Office.

The data also show that the number of married couples with children, and single parents with children has remained more or less static since 2016, but there has been a big increase in the number of cohabiting couples with children and without children.

The number of households containing cohabiting couples with children has grown by 12.8pc since 2016 to 85,262 in all.

The number of households containing cohabiting couples with no children has jumped by almost 20pc since 2016 to 91,694 in total.