Ireland’s birth rate increased by just over 16% to 16,131 in the first quarter of this year when compared with the same period in 2021 when the country was badly affected by Covid. The new total is just below the corresponding figure for 2017. However, it is still below replacement level.

The first quarter births in 2017 were 16,487; in 2018 it declined to 15,659; in 2019, the figure rose slightly to 15,893; in 2020, it declined to 14,371; in 2021, during the covid19 pandemic, it declined even more to 13,895.

Gerard Doolan, Statistician in the Vital Statistics Division, said: “We can see the number of births has increased by 2,236 when compared with the same quarter in the previous year, up from 13,895 in quarter one 2021 to 16,131 in quarter one 2022.

“Births to teenage mothers increased from 179 in quarter one 2021 to 194 in quarter one 2022.

“More than two in five of all births were outside of marriage/civil partnership, compared to the same quarter a year earlier when 40.1% of births were to mothers outside of marriage.

“Ten years ago, in quarter one 2012, this proportion was more than one in three births.”