Vital Statistics First Quarter 2025

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (29 August 2025) published Vital Statistics Quarter 1 (Q1) 2025. 

Commenting on the release, Seán O’Connor, Statistician in the Life Events and Demography Division, said: "The CSO’s Vital Statistics release provides a snapshot of the life events (births, deaths, and marriages) which were registered in January, February and March (Q1) 2025. Our Data chapter provides access to the open data available in our PxStat tables.

Registration vs Occurrence

Quarterly Vital Statistics releases provide figures on the number of births and deaths registered in the relevant quarter. Not all life events which are registered in a quarter occurred in that particular quarter. For instance, of the 13,665 births which were registered in Q1 2025, 99.2% occurred in either Q1 2025 or Q4 2024. For deaths (10,230), only 90.5% of the deaths registered in Q1 2025 occurred in either Q1 2025 or Q4 2024.

Crude Birth and Death Rates

There were 13,665 births registered in Q1 2025, which was 183 fewer than the number of registrations in Q1 2024. This represented a birth rate of 10.2 per 1,000 population compared with 10 years earlier when the annual birth rate was 14.7 per 1,000 population in Q1 2015.

There were 10,230 deaths registered in Ireland in Q1 2025, which equated to a death rate of 7.6 per 1,000 population compared with 7.3 per 1,000 population in Q1 2015.

Fertility and Age of Mothers

The Total Period Fertility Rate (TPFR) is derived from the age-specific fertility rates in the current year. It represents the projected number of children a woman would have if she experienced current age-specific fertility rates while progressing from ages 15-49 years. A value of 2.1 is generally considered to be the level at which the population would replace itself in the long run, ignoring migration.

In Q1 2025 the TPFR for Ireland was 1.5 which was below the replacement level. In Q1 2015 the TPFR stood at 2.0.

The average age of a mother giving birth was 33.2 years for Q1 2025, a decrease of 0.1 from the 33.3 years recorded in Q1 2024. This figure was 32.5 years, in the same quarter 10 years ago in Q1 2015.

Deaths

There were 10,230 registered deaths in Ireland in Q1 2025, of which 5,248 were males and 4,982 were females. There were 666 more deaths registered in Q1 2025 when compared with the same period in 2024 (+7.0%).

More than two-thirds of deaths (7,073 out of 10,230) registered in Q1 2025 were to those aged 75 years and over. Those aged 0 to 34 years accounted for 157 of the 10,230 registered deaths in Q1 2025 (1.5%).

Infant Deaths

The death of a live-born infant under the age of one is categorised as an infant death. There were 44 infant deaths registered in Q1 2025 giving an infant mortality rate of 3.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. Neonatal deaths are deaths of infants at ages under four weeks.

There were 37 neonatal deaths registered in Q1 2025. The neonatal mortality rate per 1,000 live births was 2.7 in Q1 2025. In the same quarter 10 years earlier, in Q1 2015, the neonatal rate was 1.8.

Causes of Death

More than half of registered deaths in Q1 2025 were from either malignant neoplasms (cancer) at 2,873 or 28.1%, or diseases of the circulatory system (2,738 or 26.8%).  

Deaths due to accidents, suicide, and other external causes accounted for a further 323 or 3.2% of total death registrations. Of these 323 deaths, 58 or 18.0% were classed as intentional self-harm. It should be noted that all deaths due to external causes are reported to the Coroner's Office for further investigation, therefore the number of registrations for any given period will likely underrepresent the number of deaths which have occurred due to accidents, suicide, or other external causes of mortality. Furthermore, late registered deaths (registered in 2025 but occurred before 2024) are not included in these overall figures but will be included in a supplementary table as part of the 2025 yearly summary.    

More than nine out of every ten deaths due to malignant neoplasms registered in Q1 2025 occurred to those aged 55 years and over, while just under three-quarters (73.7%) of deaths relating to accidental poisoning occurred to those aged under 55 years.

The three most common causes of death for those aged under 55 years were malignant neoplasms (235), diseases of the circulatory system (116), and external causes of injury & poisoning (85). When combined, these accounted for 65.2% of the registered deaths for this age group.  

Malignant neoplasms (2,638), diseases of the circulatory system (2,622), and diseases of the respiratory system (1,493) were the three most common causes of death for those aged 55 years and over, and when combined accounted for seven out of ten deaths (70.6%).

Natural Increase

Looking at births and deaths together allows the calculation of the natural increase (births minus deaths). It provides a snapshot of how a population is evolving. Note the natural increase does not take account of migration (inward or outward). Nationally, the natural increase for Q1 2025 stood at 3,435 (births less deaths). This is a decrease of 12.3% compared with Q1 2024 and a fall of 60.0% compared with Q1 2015.

Marriages

There were 3,133 marriages registered in Q1 2025 (down slightly from 3,136 in Q1 2024). Of these, 103 were same-sex marriages. The marriage rate in Q1 2025 was 2.3 marriages per 1,000 population."

Editor's Note

Important Notice: Information on occurrence of births and deaths is only available for these life events which have been registered. Births are more likely to be registered in a timelier manner than deaths due to variations in reporting time requirements to the General Registers Office (GRO). 

As such, birth and death occurrence statistics in this publication are provisional and subject to further revision as births and deaths continue to be registered. Statistics in more recent quarters are more likely to be subject to revision as more life events are registered.

There is an Information Note on the CSO’s website to clarify the availability of death notifications arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also explains the timing of the release of these statistics as death notifications in Ireland can be registered up to three months after the date of death.

An Information Note is also available outlining how the CSO assigns COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death.

From Q1 2023, the Vital Statistics quarterly publications provide an additional breakdown of registered births and deaths by occurrence by quarter. Prior to Q1 2023, all data was classified by quarter of registration. Please see Vital Statistics Q1 2025 Summary Results below.

Please note - all other statistics, bar those presented in the Vital Statistics Quarter 1 2025 Summary Results Table, are based off registration data and not occurrence data.