The 1996 census highlights the speed of change in modern Irish society, as traditional family structures break up and people become ever more mobile. Services and infrastructure in Dublin and the surrounding counties are likely to come under considerable pressure as a result of the changing trends revealed in the census, which was published yesterday. The results have major implications for planners, policy makers and politicians.
But they will also be studied with interest by experts in areas such as housing, family law and pensions. A doubling in the figure for broken marriages has already prompted one Dublin counselling centre to call for more funding to prevent marriage breakdown. But the census figures show that the entire family law area will need massive investment.
In all, almost 88,000 Irish people who were married are living separately, including divorcees. This figure is still small, though, compared to the 1,350,000 people who are married.
The Ireland depicted in the 1996 census is more crowded than at any time this century, particularly in Leinster. Nonetheless, Irish children are becoming something of an endangered species, as the end of the baby boom kicks in, and the size of the average Irish family drops to a modest 1.8 children.
More and more people are living alone, in urban areas, and in the east of the country. More than 100,000 of those living on their own are pensioners, and this fact alone poses a considerable challenge to the social services.
In addition, however, the overall population is starting to age - by an average of almost three years since the last census - and the western and rural counties are particularly badly affected. In compensation, perhaps, we can hope that an older population will eventually mean a drop in crime.
Politicians will study the population trends for any evidence that a redrawing of constituencies is needed. On the basis of the census figures, Cork North-West and Galway East are best represented, while Dublin West has the highest population per Dail member.
The increase of 100,000 in the overall population since the last census is higher than expected, according to the Central Statistics Office. Numbers could grow by 10 per cent in the next 10 years, the CSO forecasts, but a population "explosion" is unlikely.
While trends in the birth rate are easy to chart, migration patterns tend to be much harder to predict. The census shows that the heavy emigration of the late 1980s has been reversed, to the extent that more than 40,000 people came to Ireland in the 12 months before the census was enumerated. Almost half came from Britain.
No questions on religion were asked in the present census; the CSO says these are traditionally asked every 10 years. The results from questions relating to education, employment and the Irish language will be released in the coming months.