Immediate
release

Press
release from The Iona Institute

Increase
in marital breakdown revealed by Census ‘worrying and must be
addressed’

March
29, 2012 – New
Census data showing that the number of Irish people who have divorced is up 150
percent in the period 2002 to 2011 has been described as “worrying” by The Iona
Institute today.

Combining
separation, divorce and remarriage following divorce, the overall number of
Irish people who have experienced a broken marriage has jumped from 155,239 in
2002, to 247,000 last year, an increase of just under 60 percent in that time
period.

Since
1986, marital breakdown in Ireland has shown a sixfold increase. In 1986, there
were 40,347 separated people.

Commenting
on the figures on behalf of The Iona Institute, Professor Patricia Casey said:
“Marital breakdown in Ireland is still quite low by international standards, but
the very significant increase in the number of Irish people who have experienced
the tragedy of marital breakdown is still very worrying and must be
addressed”.

She
continued: “The new census figures show that we simply cannot take the
institution of marriage for granted, but we have to work as a society to
strengthen it and promote it”.

Professor
Casey added: “We have also take into account the effect of this on children.
Very few married couples would ever want their children to have to experience
their separation. But as the Census figures also confirm, a growing number of
children never experience the benefit of being raised by their own mother and
father together in the first place. This, too, is a cause for
concern.”

Other
figures worth noting from the new Census are the following:

• The
  percentage of children being raised in non-marital family units now stands at 28
  percent, up from 26 percent in 2006, 22 percent in 2002, and just 12.8 percent
  in 1986.
• A total
  of 21.6 percent of children are being raised in lone parent families, and 6.4
  percent by cohabiting couples
• The
  number of children being raised in non-marital family units is 456,661 out of a
  total of 1,625,675 children
• The
  percentage of children being raised in lone parent family units in Ireland is
  high by international standards. The average in OECD countries as at 2007 was
  14.9 percent

Notes to
Editors

The Iona
Institute is a pro-marriage, pro-religion think tank