THE POPULATION OF Ireland has grown to 4,757,976, the preliminary data from Census 2016 shows.
The population has grown by 169,724, or 3.7%, since the last census in 2011.
The Central Statistics Office released the figures today at Government Buildings, which show a net migration of -28,558 and a natural increase of 198,282.
The county with the largest outward migration, or number of people leaving the county, was Donegal. A balance of 6,731 people left the county in the five years since 2011.
Dublin had the highest inward migration, with 7,981 coming to the capital. The area with the largest increase in population in the country was the Fingal area of Dublin. Cork also had a large increase in population.
Seven of the ten largest increases came in Dublin electoral areas, with the other three being Navan, Maynooth and Portlaoise – all Dublin commuter towns.
The figures also show that the population per TD has risen to 30,144, above the constitutional limit of 30,000.
Deirdre Cullen of the CSO said that this would mean that there would now have to be at least one more TD and that the CSO would hand a file to the Electoral Commission tomorrow.
Housing
The figures also show that there are now 18,981 more occupied dwellings in the country, with 29.5% of homes unoccupied in Leitrim, and Kildare having just 6.3%.
In total, 259,562 dwellings are unoccupied across Ireland, having fallen by 29,889 (13.8%).
The vacancy rate has fallen to 12.8%.
CSO statistician Brendan Murphy thanked census enumerators and the public for allowing the statistics be ready within 12 weeks of the census.
The full census will be published by next March.
The Census 2016 data can be seen here.
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