The State's population rose by 104,100 to 4,234,900 in the year to April, the highest increase on record, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said yesterday. Its latest estimates of population and migration also show that population growth was largely driven by immigration.
In a separate CSO survey of the labour force published yesterday, the CSO said that employment rose by 87,800 in the 12 months leading up to last May, bringing total employment in the State to over 2 million for the first time in its history. One in 10 workers in Ireland are now foreign nationals, according to the CSO.
Some 86,900 persons immigrated to the State during the 12-month period leading up to May, according to the CSO. This was offset by 17,000 emigrants leaving the country.
Added to net immigration of 69,900, the natural increase of the population reached 34,200, the highest increase on record. This excess of births over deaths is now over double the level recorded in the period ending April 1994 - 16,600. A majority of the State's 104,100 new residents - 57,100 - were male.
Some 43 per cent came from the 10 accession states which joined the EU on May 1st, 2004. Polish nationals accounted for 22,900 immigrants, some 26 per cent of the total.
Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom are the only three original 15 members states of the EU to permit accession state citizens to work without permits.
The CSO's Quarterly National Household Survey suggests that employment growth has been driven by sectors where recruitment of immigrant workers is particularly strong, including the construction sector. Some 82 per cent of immigrants were between the age of 15 and 44.
"The figures released today are another endorsement of this Government's employment and economic policy," the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, said yesterday.
Progressive Democrats TD and party president Tom Parlon said that the Government's policies on income tax had contributed to a rise in employment and population. "Not only do we have a tax system that benefits lower wage workers over higher income earners, but over one-third of the workforce is now outside the tax net completely," he said.