CSO ethnicity results: 70% of Travellers settled

IRELAND’S Asian residents are more likely to be Catholic than Muslim, while most Travellers live in houses or flats, according to the latest results from last year’s Census.

The census has revealed almost 60% of Asian people in the country live in Dublin, in addition to 47.7% of those who described their ethnicity as black or black Irish.

Yesterday the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published its latest findings, focussing on ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The CSO put the number of people of Asian origin at 52,345, of whom 30,624, or 58.5%, live in Dublin.

The number of people describing themselves as black was 44,318, of whom 21,132, or 47.7%, lived in Dublin.

About 26% of the Asian population described themselves as Catholic, while 22% said they were Muslim.

One in three people with black or black Irish ethnicity was Catholic, with one-in-six a Muslim.

The figures also showed the number of people who described themselves as Travellers was 22,435 or 0.5% of the population.

Of those, 22,002 live in 4,371 private households, which were defined as one or more persons living at the same address with common housekeeping arrangements.

More than 69% of these Travellers lived in houses, flats, bedsits or other permanent structures. The remaining 31% lived in temporary dwellings like caravans.

Of 3,150 households in permanent accommodation, most rented from a council while 16% were owner-occupiers of their own homes.

The highest concentrations of Travellers was in the greater Dublin area or the west of Ireland, particularly Tuam in Co Galway.

Of all Travellers, more than 95% were Catholic while 2.5%, or 529 members of the community, were Church of Ireland.

www.cso.ie
Irish Examiner