Ireland’s population could grow to between 6 million and 7.59 million by the year 2065, according to projections released by the Department of Finance. The vast majority will be immigration-driven, especially in the case of the upper scenarios. By the 2040s, the CSO has estimated that deaths in Ireland will outnumber births. In the first quarter of this year, births to Irish citizens were already outnumbered by deaths of Irish citizens. Over 30 percent of births were to non-nationals.
The Department’s ‘Future Forty’ paper looks at potential demographic changes over the next forty years, “given certain assumptions regarding migration, fertility and mortality rates”.
The latest CSO data put the population of the Republic at 5.6 million.
Ireland’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen from close to 2.6 births per woman 40 years ago, to 1.9 births per woman 20 years ago, to 1.53 births per woman in 2023. A level of 2.1 is needed for a population to sustain itself.
This analysis presents three separate fertility scenarios over the time horizon, using the CSO’s baseline fertility projections as a central scenario according to which TFR is projected to gradually fall to 1.3 births per woman by 2038, before stabilising.
A higher scenario (where the TFR stabilises at 1.53 births per woman), and a lower scenario (where the TFR declines further to 1.2 births per woman) are also considered.
However, since 2023, the TFR has already fallen to 1.50 in 2024.
The fertility rates – which means the number of children born per woman – for both England and Wales and for Scotland have fallen to historic lows.
In 2024, the total fertility rate (TFR) was 1.41 children per woman for England and Wales compared to 1.42 in 2023.
Scotland’s total fertility rate fell to 1.25, down from 1.27 in 2023.
A figure of 2.1 is needed for a population to naturally sustain itself.
Last year, Ireland’s was 1.50.
Greece has announced drastic measures worth up to €1.6bn, to address a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale which the Greek prime minister has called one of the biggest challenges facing the Mediterranean nation.
The news comes as the country announced the closure of 700 schools due to falling pupil numbers.
“We know that the cost of living is one thing if you don’t have a child and another if you have two or three children,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday after announcing the policies. “So, as a state we should find a way to reward our citizens who make the choice [of having children].”
The measures, which range from a 2 percentage point reduction for all tax brackets to a zero rate for low-income families with four children, will be rolled out in 2026, said Mitsotakis.
With fertility rates in Greece among the lowest in Europe – at 1.4 children a woman, the reproduction rate is well below the replacement level of 2.1 – Mitsotakis has called the problem a “national threat”.
Acknowledging the decline had assumed existential proportions, finance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said fertility rates had halved since the start of the country’s economic crisis 15 years ago.
In her pitch to the council, Ms Steen said that as the mother of a young family, she was highly motivated to build up the pro-family values on which Irish society was founded, “and which are given a place of honour in the constitution, and which I know from personal experience to be essential to real human flourishing”.
This, she said, was in contrast to “the NGO-and media-driven consensus that seems to afflict so much of our politics, and which was rejected by the people in the 2024 referenda”.
The council will vote next Monday. Of its 33 members, 9 are Fianna Fail, 6 Fine Gael, 4 Sinn Fein, 2 Labour, 11 independents and one Independent Alliance.
Meanwhile, Irish Times columnist, Fintan O’Toole, has complimented Ms Steen for having “performed a vital democratic function in the equal marriage, abortion and care referendums by being an able, articulate and patently sincere advocate for the conservative side”.
In supporting her bid to be nominated, he said, “Those of us who are secular liberals have always stood against the silencing of minorities and we should do so now. The political system has a duty to let a variety of voices be heard in this contest”.
Up to 20 US states are considering a law to make equally shared custody the default arrangement in divorces and separations, after pioneering legislation in Kentucky was followed by a large drop in divorces.
The southern state passed its law in 2018 and Four other states—Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida and Missouri—have since passed their own versions of the bill, not least because of its effect on marriage.
Between 2016 and 2023 Kentucky’s divorce rate fell 25%, compared with a nationwide decline of 18%, according to an analysis by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University. They say the additional effect is because mothers and fathers gain equal custody over the children, whereas usually the mother gains custody. Most divorces are initiated by women.
Matt Hale, vice chair of the National Parents Organization, said “Giving kids equal access to both their parents is just common sense.”
The drop in the divorce rate is, he said, an unintended bonus of the custody law.
He suggested that parents are increasingly likely to stay together because they realise they’ll be in regular touch regardless, so “they might as well work it out.”
He added that he’s heard stories of couples who decided not to break up because of the presumption of shared custody, and years later are glad they stayed together.
Pro-family groups opposed to making Northern Ireland’s divorce law far more permissive are appealing to members to make their views known to an open consultation before Sept 26th.
Northern Ireland’s current legislation on divorce, introduced in 1978, is hybrid, allowing for divorce on grounds of fault (unreasonable behaviour, adultery and desertion) or no-fault (evidenced by separation).
The mooted changes include moving the NI system toward full “no fault” or even an administrative model like England and Wales, where applications bypass the courts altogether and cannot normally be contested.
The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) want to keep the mixed system, saying it better reflects the seriousness of marriage, allows the truth to be recognised where there is serious misconduct and promotes fairness in financial and child arrangements.
The are particularly opposed to an administrative, unilateral route that cannot normally be contested as they say marriage is a public commitment and the law should not treat ending it as a simple process.
The virtue of caritas (God’s divine love), given in baptism, is a force that can inspire the Christian politician’s work to better society, but its effectiveness depends on his fidelity to Christ.
That’s according to Pope Leo who spoke to elected officials and civil servants visiting Rome last week on a jubilee year pilgrimage from France.
Drawing on his Augustinian roots, the Pontiff urged the group to not try to separate their work from their deeper identity as Christians, but encouraged them instead to draw strength from their faith, and knowledge from the social doctrine of the Church.
“Its foundations”, he said “are fundamentally in harmony with human nature, with the natural law that all can recognize, even non-Christians, even non-believers. You must not therefore fear to propose it and to defend it with conviction”.
The Pope acknowledged the difficulties this could present for his interlocutors, as France has a very strong form of secularism that stridently excludes appeals to faith.
He said he was also aware “of the pressures, the party directives, the ‘ideological colonization’—to borrow an expression of Pope Francis—to which politicians are subjected”.
“They need courage: the courage at times to say, ‘No, I cannot!’ when the truth is at stake”.
Women postponing their first child is resulting in many not having the number of children they want, according to a leading sociologist. Ireland’s birth rate is now well below replacement level.
Carmel Hannan, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick, said many reasons underlie “postponement”, and are often due to wanting to feel economically secure, she said. The higher the risks in people’s lives, the less likely they are to make long-term decisions.
“So, if you are in education or in a precarious job, or you don’t have a house, it is likely that having children will be delayed,” she said.
“On the other hand, we are facilitating people to have children at later ages because there is so much access to IVF treatments and other measures such as surrogacy.
She added that the more people postpone having children, “the less likely they will have their ideal family size.
“Sociologists have looked at the number of children people wanted to have versus what they had. The more educated you are and postpone, the more likely you won’t have the number of kids you wanted to have. You wanted three, but you ended up having one or two”.
Well known barrister and pro-life campaigner, Maria Steen, has launched a bid to become an independent candidate in the upcoming presidential election and will make a pro-family message central to her campaign.
She will need to be nominated either by 20 members of the Oireachtas or four county councils to appear on the ballot.
Writing in the Irish Catholic, she described the Office of the President as acting “as a guardian of the Constitution, and of the indefinable spirit of Irishness that imbues both that document, and our society”.
She noted that the Constitution rests on certain “fundamental and timeless principles” including “the promotion of the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice, and Charity”.
Central to her campaign will be the ones relating to family which, she believes, “should be shared, promoted, and cherished”.
Referring to the overwhelming defeat last year of the attempt “to write women, motherhood and home out of the Constitution” which she herself campaigned against, she vowed to give a voice “to those who feel that the values they cherish are not represented in society – in fact whose values are openly attacked by our political leaders, NGOs and of course the media”.
She wishes to stand for the mothers and the fathers of Ireland, recognising and appreciating their work in serving their families “both in the home and in providing for them through their work outside the home”.
The number of people in Ireland aged 85 and over is projected to almost quadruple in the space of 30 years, the Central Statistics Office has said in a new snapshot on the lives of the country’s older people, showing how the country is rapidly ageing.
The 85+ age bracket would see a rise from an estimated 104,300 in 2027 to 389,400 in 2057.
In addition, the CSO said the old-age dependency ratio — which expresses the number of people aged over 65 as a percentage of working age adults, aged 15-64 — is expected to increase significantly in that same time, from 25% in 2027 to 49.8% in 2057, meaning by 2057 for every retired person there will be only two working age people versus four now.
