Ireland population hits 5.5 million as child numbers fall

What the Ireland population figures say about ageing

The CSO puts the number of people living in the State at 5,525,600 in the 12 months to April 2026, a rise of 66,900 on the year before.

With Northern Ireland at 1.93 million, roughly 7.5 million people now live on the island.

Migration is still doing the heavy lifting, but the pace has eased.

An estimated 110,600 immigrants arrived in the year to April, down 12 per cent on 2025, though it was the fifth year running that more than 100,000 people moved here.

Emigration fell for a second successive year, to 62,500.

The Central Statistics Office stated: "Those combined flows resulted in overall positive net migration of 48,100 people in the 12 months to April, compared with 59,700 in the previous period, a fall of 19 per cent."

The age profile is shifting fast. There were 891,100 people aged 65 and over in April, with the over-65 share rising from 14.4 per cent in 2020 to 16.1 per cent, an increase of 165,000.

At the other end, 992,400 people were aged under 14, the first time that bracket has fallen below one million since 2014.

Dublin's pull is growing too. The capital accounted for 28.9 per cent of the population in 2026, up from 28.3 per cent in 2020, and stood at 1,597,700 people.

More people, fewer children and an older population all land in the same place: pressure on housing, schools and services.

It is already showing up locally, with plans for entire new towns drawing hundreds of objections.