Census 2011: Population change

The Census reveals that the population in Ireland in April 2011 was 4,588,252, a 8.2% increase on 2006.  This is the highest population in the 32 local authority areas since 1861.

Since 1991 the population has grown by 1,062,533 people (30.1%), a phenomenal rate of growth in the twenty years.

There is a varying geography to population change (see Figure 1 below and also AIRO graphing tool here). 

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IDA job creation and losses 2007-2011 by county and region

The IDA have released data showing job creation, losses, number of IDA supported companies and numbers of permenant jobs in them for the period 2007-2011 (source of data here).  We have taken the data over the five years and put them in a set of inteactive graphs at both the county and regional scale to aid comparison.  The data show a geographical variation in the distribution of IDA activity during a very difficult economic period.  Job gains have been concentrated into Dublin, Cork and Galway, clearly the locations of choice for inward moving FDI, building on existing agglomerations.  Job losses are also large in Dublin and Cork but are offset by job creation, whereas there has been a significant proportional decline in many areas, notable Limerick and Waterford (though the number of IDA supported companies remains the same).  To access the interactive graphs click on the image right.

Eoghan McCarthy and Rob Kitchin

 

County vacancy rates

We’ve had a number of queries concerning the rates of vacancy per county.  This is not straightforward to calculate for 2009.  The vacancy rate for 2006 is reported in the Census, and we know the total number of houses build per county between 2006 and 2009 from DoEHLG.  What we don’t know is the vacancy rate for 2006-09 in different counties.  Whilst we estimate the rate at 50% at the national scale, we also know that it varies across counties due to demand.  It is likely, for example, that the vacancy rate is lower in the cities and surrounding hinterland due to greater demand than in rural counties.  What the table below shows then is the total stock in 2006, along with the number of non-principal units, the vacancy rate in 2006, and the number of new builds between 2006-09.  So, if we take County Carlow, in 2006 there was a stock 20,135 units of which 2,475 were non-principal residences (vacant or vacant for the majority of the year – 12.3%).  Then between 2006-09 an additional 3522 units were built.

County vacancy rates

Justin Gleeson and Rob Kitchin