00:03Welcome to The Cube, your news's fact-checking show. Today, we talk migration. Take a look at this.
00:10You're not going to believe this. In the space of six hours, the stats are the same.
00:1599% of Ireland's population growth is foreign-born. 1% is Irish.
00:21So, is it true that nearly all population growth in Ireland last year was driven by foreigners?
00:28The Central Statistics Office says that Ireland's population grew by nearly 67,000 people between April 2025 and April 2026.
00:38About 28% of that growth came from natural increase, meaning that there were almost 19,000 more births than
00:45deaths.
00:46The majority of all births, about 70%, were to Irish citizens, according to other CSO figures, for the whole of
00:542025.
00:55However, it is true that that rate is rapidly falling from 76% in 2022 to 74% in 2023,
01:0572% in 2024, and 70% last year.
01:09And then, of course, there's migration.
01:12The latest estimates say that there was a net flow of around 53,000 non-Irish migrants coming to the
01:19country.
01:19So, around 72% of the total growth.
01:23At the same time, more Irish citizens left the country than those who arrived, with a net loss of around
01:305,000.
01:31So, migrant arrivals are definitely contributing to Ireland's population growth,
01:36and that's also been certified by Eurostat, which classified Ireland as a country where population growth is mainly due to
01:44net migration.
01:45This aspect is even more pronounced in countries such as Spain and France,
01:50where Eurostat says the driver of population growth is indeed migration.
