More children being born outside marriage
A total of 2,560 children were born to teenage mothers in Ireland last year, 53 of whom were aged under 16, it emerged today.
New figures also revealed that more Irish kids are being born outside marriage.
The average age of first-time mothers was 28.5 years, 0.3 years older than in 2003, while 32.3% or 19,938 births were registered outside marriage in 2004, an increase of 0.9% on the previous year.
There were more than twice as many births than deaths in Ireland in 2004, according to the Central Statistics Office yearly summary for 2004.
A total of 61,684 births were registered last year compared to 28,151 deaths.
There were 167 more babies born in 2004 than in 2003.
The number of deaths registered was 672 less than the 2003 figure, which is an annual rate of 7 deaths per 1,000 population, 0.2 less than in 2003 and 1.7 less than in 1995.
A total of 457 people died from suicide, an increase of 13 on 2003, while 78% of those who died from suicide were male.
There were also 261 deaths from injuries received in car accidents last year.
There were 300 infant deaths registered in 2004, a decrease of 11 on the 2003 figure.
Almost four in every five deaths were from either diseases of the circulatory system (38%), cancer (27%), or diseases of the respiratory system (14%).
The number of deaths due to circulatory diseases – which includes heart disease and stroke – fell by 376 to 10,608. However the number of deaths from cancer rose by 149 to 7,717.
