Census 2022: Number of non-Irish citizens usually resident in Ireland rises to 12 per cent of population

Largest groups were Polish and UK citizens, followed by Indian, Romanian and Lithuanian

Illustration: Paul Scott

The number of non-Irish citizens usually resident in Ireland has increased and now accounts for 12 per cent of the population.

The biggest groups were still Polish and UK citizens followed by Indian, Romanian and Lithuanian.

The number of Polish people in Ireland has fallen significantly, and now stands at fewer than 100,000. Their numbers declined by 24 per cent in the six years to 2022, from 122,515 to 92,887. The number of people with UK and Lithuanian citizenship also decreased.

In contrast, numbers from India, Romania and Brazil have increased significantly since 2016. The number of Indian nationals increased from from 20,969 to 56,642; Romanians from 28,702 to 42,460; and Brazilians from 15,796 to 39,556.

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The number of people born in Syria increased more than four fold to 3,922 between 2016 and last year; while those born in Chile more than tripled to 1,363.

There were 18,566 people on Census night who indicated that their country of citizenship was Ukraine. Though there were many more from Ukraine in Ireland, a high number indicated Ireland was not their ‘usual residence’ so they were not included in these figures.

The number of people who usually lived in Ireland but were born elsewhere stood at 20 per cent of the population, representing 1,017,437 people, an increase of 207,031 on 2016′s total.

An expanded number of categories on ethnicity were available on the census form. A total of 94,434 people identified as Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi; 20,115 identified as Arab and 16,059 as Roma.

The number of usually resident Irish Travellers increased by 6 per cent to 32,949, and the numbers identifying as Chinese increased to 26,828.

Kitty Holland

Kitty Holland

Kitty Holland is Social Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times