More than a quarter of black people living in Ireland were born here, according to the latest batch of Census statistics released today.
Some 28 per cent of persons with black or black-Irish ethnicity living in the State at the time of the 2006 census were born here.
A total of 34.9 per cent of persons in these categories are under ten years old, compared with a national average figure of 14.1 per cent.
The figures on ethnic or cultural backgrounds also show that Co Louth has highest proportion of people with black or black-Irish ethnicity. Some 2.2 per cent of the county's usually resident population fell into this category, compared with a national average figure of 1.1 per cent.
Dublin had the largest number of persons with black or black-Irish ethnicity (21,132 persons) representing 47.7 per cent of the group at State level.
A new question asked in the 2006 census revealed that of the 52,345 people with Asian or Asian-Irish ethnicity live in the State. A total of 30,624 (or 58.5 per cent) lived in Dublin when the Census was carried out in April 2006.
One in three people with black or black-Irish ethnicity was Catholic, according to the data with a further one in six saying they were Muslim. The predominant religion among the Asian or Asian-Irish community was also Catholic (26 per cent) followed by Muslim (22 per cent).
The figures also show that two out of every five Travellers were aged less than 15 years in 2006 compared with one-in-five for the population as a whole. Older Travellers (i.e. those aged 65 years and over) accounted for just 2.6 per cent of the total Traveller population, compared with 11 per cent for the general population.
The average age of the Traveller community is18, compared with a national figure of 33. The figures point to a significantly lower life expectancy in the Traveller community.
Of the towns with a population of 5,000 or more in April 2006, Tuam, Co Galway (7.7 per cent) had the highest proportion of Travellers. This was followed by Longford (4.6 per cent), Birr (4 per cent) and Ballinasloe (3 per cent). Overall, the Irish Traveller population of 22,435 represented 0.5 per cent of the Irish population at the time of the 2006 census.
A total of 15,195 of the 22,002 Travellers residing in private households in 2006 lived in permanent accommodation. A further 5,489 lived in temporary accommodation while 1,318 did not indicate the type of accommodation they occupied. Four out of ten Travellers who responded to the question therefore lived in temporary accommodation.
