That's according to the ESRI's Perinatal Statistics for 2011.

The report shows that Ireland continues to have the highest birth rate of 27 EU countries - but the rate of births is declining.

Ireland is also producing more babies, per head, than any of the other 26 EU nations with a third of them being born to single Mothers.

The ESRI, which has produced the new report on births in Ireland, is also pointing out that women are having babies older.

Women are, on average, now nearly 32 years old when they have their babies, while 29% were aged 35 or older in 2011.

Meanwhile, very few babies are being born to teen Mothers - only 2% of women giving birth were under 19 last year.

Some of the other findings of the report are:

• The decline in birth numbers continues as 74,377 births were notified to the NPRS in 2011 compared with 75,600 births in 2010. This represents a reduction of 1.6% since 2010 and 2.2% since the peak in 2009.
• At 16.2 per 1,000 population, Ireland again reported the highest birth rate of any of the 27 EU countries. The second highest EU birth rate was reported for the UK at 12.9 per 1,000 population.
• The decline in the perinatal mortality rate continues. This rate is estimated at 6.1 per 1,000 live births and stillbirths in 2011 compared with 6.8 per 1,000 live births and stillbirths in 2010 which represents a reduction of over 10%. When compared with 2002, when the perinatal mortality rate was 8.4 per 1,000 live births and stillbirths, the 2011 rate represents a reduction of 27%.
• The stillbirth rate is estimated at 4.0 per 1,000 live births and stillbirths in 2011 compared with 5.6 per 1,000 live births and stillbirths in 2002, representing a reduction of 29%. The early neonatal mortality rate is estimated at 2.1 per 1,000 live births in 2011 compared with 2.8 per 1,000 live births in 2002 which represents a reduction of 25% over the decade.
• The twinning rate for 2011 was 18.1 per 1,000 maternities. This compares with a twinning rate in 2010 of 16.7 per 1,000 maternities. Multiple births in 2011 included 1,319 sets of twins, 28 sets of triplets and 1 set of quadruplets.
• At 2.03, Ireland reported the highest total period fertility rate of the 22 EU countries for which 2011 data were available.

Professor Miriam Wiley of the ESRI spoke about the report findings:

You can read the full report on the ESRI website here