Irish fertility rates are the highest in the European Union, with Irish women having more children during their lifetimes than any others in the other 24 EU states.
There were 61,529 babies born in Ireland in 2003
The Central Statistics Office issued a report today showing that in 2003, Irish women had an average of 1.98 children, compared with an EU average of 1.48. The next highest country was France, where the rate is 1.89 children.
The unit of measurement of fertility is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), which estimates the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime.
Ireland's TFR has risen from a low of 1.85 in 1995. During the 1960s and 1970s, the rate was over three children, dropping to just over two children in the 1980s.
The number of young women in their teens and early twenties having babies dropped in 2003 compared to the previous year. The average age of mothers in 2003 was 30.6 years, 0.2 years older than in 2002.
There were 61,529 babies born in Ireland in 2003, an increase of 1,026 on the 2002 figure. The number is the highest since 1986. Over 31 per cent (19,210) of births in 2003 were outside marriage. For women having their first child, over 43 per cent of births were outside marriage.
The same report shows there were 29,074 deaths in Ireland in 2003, a decrease of 609 on the previous year.
Husbands are still much more likely to die before wives than wives before husbands, with 68 per cent of the 10,648 married people who died in 2003 being men.
Almost 80 per cent of deaths were from either diseases of the circulatory system (38 per cent), cancer (26 per cent), or diseases of the respiratory system (15 per cent).
Deaths due to injury and poisoning amounted to 1,601 or over one in twenty (5.5 per cent) of all deaths. Almost 70 per cent of these deaths were men.