This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures and limitations of this report, see the Background Notes section.
This publication involved the application of enhanced CSO geocoding methods to allow the CSO to assign General Register Office (GRO) birth and death data - as coded by CSO Vital Statistics - to be assigned Census and Health Service Executive (HSE) boundaries. This allowed for previously unavailable deprivation and degree of urban / rural status to be assigned to nearly all CSO Vital Statistics Birth and Death Statistics.
Address data relating to births and deaths was geocoded to Census 2022 Small Area boundaries where possible. The level of geocoding was very high – around 99% which allows nearly every birth and death over the period 2019 to 2025 to be classified by any geography associated with a Census 2022 Small Area. While there was a cohort of data not matched to small area, work is ongoing to manually match these. To examine the automated geocoding process a sample of address records were taken and manually coded to a Census 2022 Small Area. In around nine out of every ten cases, the manual coded small area chosen was the same small area as the automated process. Work is ongoing to refine this process in future iterations with any results being backdated to previously published data.
The results presented in this publication are based on figures presented in previously published Vital Statistics releases.
For clarity total birth figures for the period 2019 to 2023 come from those presented in the Vital Statistics Annual Reports, and are based on the year the birth occurred. Figures for the periods 2024 and 2025 are those presented in the Vital Statistics Yearly Summary and are based on the year the birth was registered.
For death figures for period 2019 to 2022, these come from the revised death figures presented in VSA35, while for 2023 latest Annual Report for 2023. Figures for the periods 2024 and 2025 are those presented in the Vital Statistics Yearly Summary and are based on the year the death was registered.
The PxStat tables in this report will be updated over time as per the Vital Statistics publication cycle.
The linkage and analysis was undertaken by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for statistical purposes in line with the Statistics Act, 1993 and the CSO Data Protocol.
Deaths are classified to the World Health Organisation (WHO) International Classification of Diseases, Version 10 (ICD10).
The Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) has been defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as,
(a) the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death
or
(b) the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury.
From 1st January 2018 the CSO is using IRIS software to assign the UCOD. IRIS is a European developed automated coding software, endorsed by Eurostat and is maintained by the IRIS institute and all WHO updates to the ICD-10 classification are included according to the WHO timelines.
Inquest deaths are coded manually due to the nature of the reporting of these cases. The difficulty lies in automatically assigning a verdict from a broad range of verdicts open to a Coroner or jury which include accidental death, misadventure, suicide, open verdict, natural causes (if so, found at inquest) and in certain circumstances, unlawful killing.
| Type | Definition | |
|---|---|---|
| Urban areas | Cities | Cities with populations greater than 50,000 - using Census 2022 definitions / breakdowns. |
| Satellite urban towns | Towns / Urban Areas with populations between 1,500 and 49,999, where 20 percent or more of the usually resident employed population's workplace address is in 'Cities'. | |
| Independent urban towns | Towns / Urban Areas with populations between 1,500 and 49,999, where less than 20 percent of the usually resident employed population's workplace address is in 'Cities'. | |
| Rural Areas | Rural areas with high urban influence | Rural areas (themselves defined as having an area type with a population less than 1,500 persons, as per Census 2022) are allocated to one of three sub-categories, based on their dependence on urban areas. Again, employment location is the defining variable. The allocation is based on resident employed adults of a rural Small Area who work in the three standard categories of urban area (for simplicity the methodology uses main, secondary and minor urban area). The total working in each urban area were weighted through the use of multipliers. The multipliers allowed for the increasing urbanisation for different sized urban areas. For example, the number of rural people working in a main urban area had double the impact of the same number working in a minor urban area. The weighting acknowledges the impact that a large urban centre has on its surrounding area. The adopted weights for: Main urban areas is 2. Satellite urban communities is 1.5. Independent urban communities is 1. The weighted number of workers are divided into tercile to assign one of the three rural breakdowns. |
| Rural areas with moderate urban influence | As above | |
| Highly rural / remote areas | As above |
The Deprivation groupings presented in this publication come from the latest Pobal HP Deprivation Index which is derived from Census 2022 data. Below are the technical definitions of each group.
| Relative Index Score | Deprivation Category | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| >30 | Extremely Affluent | More than 3 standard deviations above the average. |
| 20 to 30 | Very Affluent | 2 to 3 standard deviations above the average. |
| 10 to 20 | Affluent | 1 to 2 standard deviations above the average. |
| 0 to 10 | Marginally Above Average | Up to 1 standard deviation above the average. |
| -10 to 0 | Marginally Below Average | Up to 1 standard deviation below the average. |
| -20 to -10 | Disadvantaged | 1 to 2 standard deviations below the average. |
| -30 to -20 | Very Disadvantaged | 2 to 3 standard deviations below the average. |
| < -30 | Extremely Disadvantaged | More than 3 standard deviations below the average. |
Deaths that occur in the State should be registered within 3 months of the date thereof, particularly in the case of a natural cause of death. However, all deaths attributable to external causes are referred to the Coroner's Court. As such, a lag can occur as to when these deaths are registered with the General Register Office (GRO), and in some cases they can be registered much later than the 22-month deadline to produce the CSO's Vital Statistics Annual Reports.
Therefore, the figures presented within the CSO's Annual Report should be considered a point in time estimate of deaths, and will potentially be subject to increase as further late registered deaths are lodged with the GRO, and processed by the CSO.
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