Huge factor in decline in primary school numbers ignored

This week saw significant coverage of data published by the Department of Education and Youth "which showed that 6,470 fewer children are attending primary school this year compared to last".

But while there was much discussion of the damage caused to rural communities by the closure of small schools - and no-one doubts that devastating effect - as ever, when it comes to demographic matters, it felt as if the coverage deliberately veered away from the most obvious and significant factor leading to this outcome: the collapse in the Irish birth rate which is exacerbated by the spiralling abortion rate.

It's not rocket science - fewer births, fewer children, fewer primary school enrolments, fewer students at secondary, fewer taxpayers, fewer workers, less growth, less to spend on pensions etc. The CSO told us in 2024 that the number 0-4 year olds in Ireland is down 20% on the peak recorded in 2012, yet almost no-one asks why.

In fact, official projections show that the number of children attending primary school is projected to drop by 100,000, or almost a fifth, over the next decade.

The projections are appalling and the outcomes should be obvious, though the government is resolutely doing nothing about it as Paschal Donohoe recently told Ben Scallan before he hoofed off to the World Bank to earn purses of gold for something other than facing up to the enormous risk to the world economy that the population implosion is predicted to be.

A fall of almost 6,500 children seems drastic unless one is reminded of just how dramatic and unprecedented the collapse in births has been. Ireland's fertility rate is now far below replacement level at a dismal 1.5 per woman of childbearing age. We recorded more than 75,000 births in 2010 - in 2024 that had fallen to just over 54,000.

A glance at the fertility rate graph below should make it evident why we have less 4 and 5-year-olds ready to start primary school, and why that trend is not going to improve anytime soon, especially when the government continues its anti-family policies, such as tax-individualisation where parents are punished by paying thousands in extra tax every year because one of them - usually the mother - chooses to be at home with their children at home when they are young.

    

   

    

The impact of the absurdly-long Covid lockdowns is evident too  - fertility rates fell even further from a dangerously low positions during that period, and have mostly not recovered.

Yet, as I have previously noted about the baby bust, for most of my adult life this country was in complete denial about falling fertility, subjecting all of us to lectures about overpopulation while being sniffy and openly contemptuous of marriage and motherhood. Big families, which seems to be any more than two kids these days, were treated with derision when they should have been applauded for raising up the next generation.

That history explains, in part, the reason for the strange avoidance - the incomplete analysis - in the media all week about the ominous decline in the number of children starting primary school.

Irish media suffers from the most appalling groupthink - and has long been a willing arm of campaigns to reduce family size and legalise abortion. The collective worldview of the media in this country has certainly not been to encourage more births, and the liberal/left ideology which has held sway in that regard was further coloured by their religious-like reverence for climate change messages which often stretched to doom-laden warnings against having children from its most prominent advocates.

While the slump in births has become almost impossible for policymakers and politicians to ignore, the media still seem most reluctant to even acknowledge the problem, precisely because that acknowledgment might also be an admittance that their dogged campaigning has now inevitably led to the immediate threat of a catastrophic, perhaps even civilisation- ending, outcome - and the Irish media never, ever like to admit they, or the ideology they collectively so wholeheartedly embrace, got anything wrong.

So the report from the (unwillingly) taxpayer-funded broadcaster on the sharp decline in children attending school read like this, for example:

The latest data published by the Department of Education and Youth shows that 6,470 fewer children are attending primary school this year compared to last.

Primary school enrolment fell by almost 4,000 last year and by just over 2,000 two years ago. Eleven primary schools have closed permanently since last June due to low enrolment making them unviable.

The latest Department of Education and Youth data reveals more tiny schools struggling to survive, especially along the west coast where the national decline in primary school-age children, combined with rural depopulation and changing work patterns in families, have created the perfect storm.

This telling of the tale, in common with how it was reported elsewhere, repeatedly tells us the obvious  - there has been a decline in primary school enrolment - but is pretty vague on the most obvious factor driving that decline.

Yes, rural depopulation is a pressing issue - and RTÉ's report did a good job on talking to schools who are in danger of closure because of that problem - as is the cost of living and the fact that a whole generation of young people in Ireland feel locked out of housing. There was no mention of the fact that the continued insanity of Green-influenced planning policy further forbids young people in rural areas to build a home where they were born and reared, because An Taisce has decided the countryside is not a place for humans can reside. wns.

Neither was there any mention of Ireland's collapsed birth rate and the factors that led to same. And of course, the elephant in the room was never mentioned: abortion.

Ireland's abortion rate has gone through the roof, cheered on by the wholly-captured establishment who regularly sounded delighted that the numbers were spiralling. Even if you allow for 1,000 abortions using pills by post in 2018, there were less than 4,000 abortions that year, in sharp contrast to almost 11,000 in 2024 and likely in excess of 11,000 last year. The graph below is almost an inverse of the falling birth rate captured in the graph above.

 

   

We should not be surprised that primary school enrolments are falling fast. Children who have never been born have no need for a place at school or a teacher or a classroom.

11,000 abortions amounts to 440 classrooms or 28 full primary schools wiped out before birth in just one year. Add that to a culture where marriage and childbearing have also been deliberately diminished, and you have a recipe for disaster.

But don't expect to see that on RTÉ anytime soon - or on any of the other media platforms enjoying such lavish funding from me and you via the state. They'll just stick to the script and hope their listeners keep their heads firmly stuck in the sand.

Note: This piece was updated to include CSO figures on 01/02/2026

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This article was first published in Gript and is printed here with permission

  

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Photo: Aleks822 / Shutterstock

    

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