evidence: Ireland's population was estimated to be 5.01 million in April 2021, which is the first time the population has risen above five million since the 1851 census, when the comparable population was 5.11 million. The total population on the island of Ireland in 1851 was 6.6 million. See Figure 1.1. [...] There were 742,300 people living in Ireland aged 65 and over in April 2021. Those aged 65 and over are the only group to gain population share between 2016 and 2021, increasing from 13.3% to 14.8% of the total, this equates to a volume increase of 112,500. The traditional working age population i.e. those aged 15-64 have grown by around 170,000 persons since 2016, but have seen their population share decline slightly from 65.5% to 65.3%. The population aged 0-14 has seen its population share decline by 1.3 percentage points (10,000 persons) since 2016. See Figure 1.3 and Table 1.2. [...] All regions showed some population increase in the year to April 2021. Dublin’s population increased by 8,300 in 2021 bringing the population of Dublin to almost 1.43 million, amounting to 28.5% of the State total. The Midlands with just over 307,000 persons (6.1%) was the region with the smallest population in April 2021. See Table 1.4 and Map 1.1.