There has been a major increase in people working in construction-related occupations over four years, according to figures released today.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show the number of road workers almost trebled from 2,980 in April 2002 to 8,802 in April 2006. The number of pipe layers, bricklayers, crane drivers, roofers and plasterers all increased by over 70 per cent over the same four-year period.
The proportion of manufacturing workers fell from 12.6 per cent in 2002 to 11.8 per cent in 2006.
The new figures from last year's census also show that approximately 103,000 of the 110,527 non-Irish nationals from the new EU10 accession states aged 15 years and over in April 2006 were in the labour force.
This represents a labour force participation rate of 93 per cent compared with 68 per cent for non-EU nationals. The corresponding rate for the population as a whole was 62.5 per cent.
Almost one in three workers from Asia (32.7 per cent) had occupations in the professional, technical and health sectors, compared with 16.4 per cent for the population overall.
The towns with the highest concentration of clerical, managing and Government workers in 2006 were Malahide (31.2 per cent) and near-neighbours Portmarnock (29.9 per cent) and Donabate (28.6 per cent).
At a national level, this occupational group accounted for 17.6 per cent of persons in the labour force.