This morning the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released its preliminary analysis of the five-year census that was undertaken on 10th April, 2011. In the so-called inter-censal years, we rely on estimates from the CSO and the Economic Social Research Institute, so the actual census results are eagerly awaited. Here are the highlights
(1) The population in April 2011 was 4,581,269 which is considerably up from the inter-censal estimate of 4,470,000 for April 2010. It is also 8.1% from the last census in 2006. The reason : world-beating birth rates, very low mortality rates and strong inward migration for 2006-2008 partly offset by subsequent outward migration.
(2) For interest and this is not in the census results today : add in the estimated 1,789,000 souls in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland now has a population of 6,370,269 which compares with an all-time high of 8,175,000 in 1841 just before The Famine and 6,552,000 in 1851 and 5,798,000 in 1861 and an all-time low of 4,228,000 in 1926. Contrast that with the population ofEngland,ScotlandandWaleswhich was 18,500,000 in 1841 and is over 60m today.
(3) There are 2,004,175 dwellings in the State, up from 1,769,613 in 2006. That’s an impressive increase of 13.3% or 234,562 dwellings.
(4) Vacant dwellings which were estimated at 300-350,000 last year are actually 294,202 which is slightly below estimates. Unfortunately we do not have information at this stage about holiday homes, which will feature in the full census reports in 2012. So it is not possible to determine the level of overhang of vacant property inIreland. Overhang is the amount of vacant property excluding holiday homes and what is termed the normal vacancy rate, and is taken to indicate the particular problem thatIreland now experiences as a result of the construction boom in the early/mid 2000s. The overhang was estimated at over 100,000 dwellings last year. Most of the overhang is not in ghost estates where only 33,000 completed or near-completed dwellings are vacant.
(5) The vacancy rate, the percentage of dwellings not occupied, actually dropped from 15% to 14.7%. That might raise eye-brows. Population increased by 8.1% in the period from 2006, whereas dwellings increased by 13.3%. So a decrease in the vacancy rate means there are fewer people on average living in each dwelling. In 2006 there were 2.82 people living in each occupied dwelling, in 2011 that had dropped to 2.68.
(Click to enlarge)
NAMA Wine Lake 
Hmmmmm. Either people aren’t emigrating, or the CSO is counting things in a very Irish Way.
@OMF, not at all, inward migration continued until 2008, probably part of 2009 when we started to have net outward migration. The CSO confirms this in the report this morning but doesn’t provide a breakdown by year. So we appear to have had stronger than expected net inward migration in 2006/7/8 and then outward migration, the net over the five years is still a positive it seems.
It seems a case can well be made for a yearly Census.
@Vincent, at a cost of €57m per census it would have to be a pretty good case! Though presumably if it was done annually the cost would drop but I wouldn’t expect by very much.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/your-numbers-up-as-census-2011-swings-into-operation-2544334.html
Most certainly the Census Act can be made use of to suck true and valid info from each and every government body. There is not one ounce of info drawn from the census that isn’t sitting in the government departments already.
The figure that sticks out for me in the increase in vacant dwellings in Donegal over the period. Over 5000 giving a 26% increase.
Of course some could be holiday homes but it could also indicate particularly bad emigration issue from Donegal.
That ‘headline’ empties figure in 2006 ( 266k empty) does not include 30k Temporarily Absent …ie empty on the night but not usually.
Add them and you get 296k in 2006.
I reckon the number will be higher this time, possibly even 50k. Emigrants claiming tax reliefs and emigrants dodging the NPPR Headage charge on second homes would be my prime suspects :)
Mindya the 100k extra people the CSO never noticed, assuming the average 2.6 persons per household, account for 38k units alone. Add 38k to 294k to account for the 100k persons who showed up for the first time in the census ( not in the http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/population/current/popmig.pdf population estimate last year) and we would have 342k empties ( not counting temporarily absent) instead.
But it seems our population is a lot higher than estimated and the empties are therefore lower.
We will not know for another year though!
@2Pack, In 2006 the population was 4,239,848 and the total number of houses was 1,769,613 and vacancies were 266,322. Therefore for each of the 1,503,291
occupied houses, the average occupancy was 2.82 people.
In 2011 the population was 4,581,269 and total number of houses was 2,004,175 and vacancies were 294,202. If the same 2.82 per occupied house were to have stayed flat, then the occupied houses would have been 1,624,346 (4,581,269/2.82) which would have meant 379,828 houses were vacant which would have been a 18.95% vacancy rate, considerably up from 15% in 2006.
So it’s divorce, separation, marrying later and the modern trend towards single occupant life. It’s not because we’re having fewer children.
It might be interesting to marry the holiday home stats from Finance to this table.
I had suspected a slowdown in the long term shrinkage trend in Household sizes …..it was long term trending down 0.2 persons per occupied unit per 5 year intercensal and I suspected that would be nearer .1. Meaning 2.7 per not 2.6.
However I was wrong, it stayed Bang on trend ( even with the strong rise in births 2006-2011) and ended up at 2.59
But the realy doozy was finding 100k persons lurking around uncounted and unestimated.
@2Pack. agree with you there, with a CSO estimate of 4,479,000 last April 2010, I thought it would be very close to that or slightly below because of day-to-day observation of emigration. So 4,481,000 was a surprise today for sure.
@Vincent, what do you mean by “holiday home stats from Finance”? We have some stats on the second home tax but that will be a mix of investment properties and holiday homes.
@2Pack, if I am calculating correctly there was a 0.14 shrinkage in average household size between 2006 and 2011.
Granted. But there has to be a way to get to the figure of ACTUAL overhang of empty houses that are nominally surplus to current requirements. For then and only then can we get near something of the true nature of the dilemma.
Eh ??? I calculated that off 1.77m households not 1.71m That was the total housing stock in 2006…sorry, My Mistake.
So I was right on my long term suspicion not wrong. I did think the shrinkage in household size had abated. Household sizes shrink by 0.04 per annum rather linearly for years but that was below 0.03 per annum in this intercensal period.
We did it on the Pin of course :) One example.
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37767&p=499212&hilit=household+1991#p499212
“Our average household size is shrinking and has been a long time. 2.8 was the 2006 number but do note the following. Household sizes at the last 3 censii were :
3.15 in 1996
2.95 in 2002
2.8 in 2006
A decline of about 0.04 a year. It may even be as low as 2.6 persons per property now. [b]I suspect it is somewhere between 2.7 and 2.6[/b]
The CSO estimated population at around 4.47m in April 2010 up only 10,000 from 2009. I think it is lower than that now and the census preliminary data will be out in the summer.
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/ … popmig.pdf
4.47m people at a household size of 2.8 persons per unit needs 1.60m homes
4.47m people at a household size of 2.7 persons per unit needs 1.65m homes
4.47m people at a household size of 2.6 persons per unit needs 1.72m homes
120k in the difference and a very important distinction it is :)
The Housing STOCK is estimated at 2.01m ”
It was 2.004m at census time. Means the housing stock ( calculated off ESB connections) is a reliable number …unlike the population estimates what :)
More here
http://www.finfacts.com/irishfinancenews/article_10004604.shtml
OH!!!, and John Fitzgeralds data
HTH
2Pack
GNP has been declining for a number of years now whilst the population is increasing rapidly.
GNP per Capita is therefore declining .
Capital expenditure is gutted in cutbacks ensuring below par infrastructure to cope with population growth and extra pressure on existing infrastructure.
Our wealth is therefore in freefall and the above parameters are reflective of what happens in third world countries.
It is also proof that immigration as a policy of government is an abject failure.
The replacement rate of the indigenous Irish population is just below
what is required to maintain a steady population.
25% of all births in 2009 were to foreign born mothers.If the foreign born population is between 10 and 20% (presumably CSO will publish a breakdown by nationality) and if these patterns of population growth continue then the indegenous Irish will become a minority within 50 years.
The culture of those who have immigrated here is ,based on anecdotal evidence ,to rent rather than to buy so the prevailing culture may well change permanently re house ownership along with our own experience of being burnt in the property fiasco.