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Boom in population puts Ireland top of Europe IRELAND
has the fastest growing population in the European Union — helped
by a large influx of people from Britain.
Only Spain and Cyprus came anywhere close to the country’s steep
annual growth rate among the 27 member states in the 12 months to April
this year.
It is the third year in a row in which a rise of over 2 per cent in the
number of people living in the Republic has been recorded.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said soaring levels of immigration
was the main factor pushing up the population by 2.5 per cent in 2007
to an estimated total of 4.3million people.
The total number of immigrants in the year to April was 109,500 —
far higher than any year since 1987.
Most came from Poland which accounted for 94,000 new arrivals last year
but 22,000 came from Britain.
It is not known how many of the British arrivals were Irish nationals
returning home.
Ireland’s population growth rate is far ahead of the second most
expanding country Spain — where the growth rate is 1.64 per cent
according to figures from EU statistics agency Eurostat.
The third fastest growing state in the EU is Cyprus which is increasing
at a rate of 1.6 per cent.
Ireland’s population is growing at almost three times the rate it
is in Britain which saw a rise of 0.8 per cent in 2007. |
