How long can Ireland’s rapid population growth continue?

In our final ‘Economics Weekly’ publication before Christmas we focus on the most pressing issue facing the Irish economy – whether the recent exceptional pace of job creation and population growth can be sustained in the face of growing bottlenecks and capacity pressures. The Irish population grew by 1.9% for a second successive year, or by 98,700, in 2024, to a fresh high of 5.38 million, four-fifths of which was accounted for by net inward migration. This demonstrates that Ireland’s tight labour market continues to attract workers from abroad, at apace not seen since the Celtic Tiger period. However, despite rising to 5.38 million the population of the Republic of Ireland has still only recovered to a similar level to that last seen in mid-1800s, a legacy of the famine, emigration and population decline that followed. The upshot is that population density is still low by European standards, pointing to latent capacity for further population growth in the coming decades.

Read the weekly in full here:

Bank of Ireland Economics Weekly 17 December 2024