The baby boom remains in the past as new figures show the numbers drop for yet another year.
Since 2008, the number of births registered have dropped by 19.4% - down 14,708 babies.
The figures released by the Central Statistics Office yesterday [Fri] showed that there were 61,016 births last year, 1037 less than in 2017.
And the average age of a new mum was 31.1 years - up 0.1 from 2017.
Statistician Carol Anne Hennessy said: “There were 61,016 births registered in 2018, 1.7% fewer than 2017 and a fall of 19.4% since 2008.
“This represented an annual birth rate of 12.6 per 1,000 of population compared to 16.9 per 1,000 population in 2008.
“Almost four in ten babies were born outside of marriage or civil partnerships but of these, 59% were to cohabiting parents.
“A total of 980 teenagers had babies in 2018 and of these 22 were aged under 16 years.
“There were also 4,670 births to mothers aged 40 and over in and of these, 327 were aged 45 and over.”
When it came to the end of life, the numbers of deaths recorded were 31,116, of which 25,633 were in people aged over 65, which accounts for four fifths of the total.
Ms Hennessy said: “Almost three in four deaths were from malignant neoplasm (9,198 or 29.6%), diseases of the circulatory system (8,938 or 28.7%) or diseases of the respiratory system (4,165 or 13.4%).
“Deaths due to accidents, suicide and other external causes accounted for a further 1,341 or “4.3% of all deaths in 2018.
“The natural increase (births minus deaths) in 2018 was 29,900, which was 5.3% lower than the natural increase of 31,569 in 2017.
“There were 21,053 marriages registered in 2018, of which 664 were same-sex marriages.
“The marriage rate in 2018 was 4.3 marriages per 1,000 of population, 0.3 less than the rate in 2017.”
