THE economic impact on Donegal through emigration has been laid bare in statistics from the recent census which shows a population decline in the county – the biggest in the country – despite an increase in the population nationally.
Population change varied widely across the country ranging from a high of over 8 per cent in Fingal to a low of -1.5 per cent in Donegal.
Among the fastest growing counties were the four administrative areas of Dublin, along with the commuter belt counties of Meath, Kildare and Laois and the cities of Cork and Galway.
While most counties experienced some level of population growth three counties witnessed population decline over the five years, namely Donegal (-1.5%), Mayo (-0.2%) and Sligo (-0.1%).
The first results of the 2016 census were released today and show that the preliminary total of the population enumerated on Census Night, Sunday the 24th of April 2016, was 4,757,976 persons. This compares with 4,588,252 persons in April 2011, an increase of 169,724 persons since 2011 or 3.7 per cent.
Net migration, calculated as the residual of the total population increase of 169,724 less natural increase of 198,282, is estimated to be -28,558 over the five years 2011 to 2016.
This compares with net inward migration of 115,800 over the previous five years.
Net migration varied widely across Ireland, from a low of -6,731 in Donegal to a high of 7,257 in Dublin City. Dublin City and Cork City (4,380), along with the administrative area of Dún-Laoghaire Rathdown (4,066), were the only areas to experience net inflows of any meaningful amount, while Fingal (875), Laois (285), Longford (178) and Kilkenny (127) showed marginal increases.
Brendan Murphy, Statistician at the CSO concluded that “These preliminary results, published just 12 weeks after census day, are based on a clerical summary of each enumeration area compiled by the 4,663 enumerators.
“These counts were returned to the CSO in advance of the census forms themselves and the results published today are based on this information. We’d like to thank the enumerators and their supervisors for all their hard work over the course of the census, and in particular for making the publication of these results today possible. Scanning and processing of the two million actual census forms is well underway and the first definitive results are due to be published next March, within a year of census day.”
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