The Vital Statistics Yearly summary from the CSO shows the number of people in Ireland aged between 20 and 29 fell from 755-thousand in 2009 to 549,300 last year - a fall of 27.2%
The summary, published yesterday, also shows that almost every other age group increased in size.
The group with the sharpest decline has been 20 to 24 year-olds - the number has contracted by almost one third,
Most dramatic however is the fall in the number of younger women.
The number of females aged 20 to 24 fell from 180,900 in 2009 to 119,300 last year – a fall of 34%
