Nearly 20 percent of all births in the second quarter of this year were to cohabiting couples, new figures show.

The figures, published by the Central Statistics Office in its quarterly Vital Statistics report, show that there were 17,107 births registered in the second quarter of 2013.

Of these, 3,311, or 19.3pc, were to unmarried couples living at the same address.

This is more or less the same as the percentage of births to cohabiting couples in the second quarter of last year.

Overall, there were 5,824 births registered as outside marriage/civil partnership in the second quarter of 2013, which amounted to 34pc of all births, a decrease of 0.3pc compared to the second quarter of last year.

The highest percentage of births outside marriage/civil partnership was in Limerick City at 57.6pc, while the lowest percentage of births outside marriage/civil partnership was in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown at 22.9pc.

Ten years earlier, in quarter 2 2004, 4,874 births were registered outside marriage or 31.4pc of all births.

The number of marriages registered during the quarter was 5,444, equivalent to an annual marriage rate of 4.7 per 1,000 population, the same as the corresponding quarter of 2012.