The fall in the number of births in this country between between 2011 and 2012 has been the largest drop in the last decade.

There were 71,986 births here in 2012, representing a reduction of 3.2% since 2011 and 5.9% since the peak in 2009.

Despite the decline, Ireland has the highest birth rate out of all 27 EU member countries with Irish people giving birth to 15.6 children for every 1,000 people compared to the EU average of 10.4.

The findings come as part of the latest Perinatal Statistics report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), which also shows a 3% drop in the number of stillbirths between 2012 and the previous year, and a 33% drop since 2003.

The average age of women giving birth was 31.9 in 2012 and some 34% of births were to single mothers.

Sheelagh Bonham from the ESRI explained the significance of the figures:

For a look at how fast the world's population is changing in terms of birth and death rates, check out the real-time statistics on Worldometers.