IRISH MEN COULD look forward to living nearly ten years longer by 2041, according to public health data tables.

The Public Health Information System (PHIS) health data tables have for the first time today been made accessible to the general public. Previously they were provided to senior health professionals on CD.

You can view the entire updated tables at the Institute of Public Health’s HealthWell website, but we’ve trawled through some of the information there to bring you some interesting facts about our nation’s health:

• As of 2009, the population of the Republic of Ireland stands at 4,459, 300.
• It is projected that the total population will increase to anywhere between 4,893,022 and 5,121,966 by 2041.
• Average life expectancy should have increased by 2041 – based on statistics in the 2006 Census and other factors (which are, of course, subject to change), it is predicted that a man’s average life expectancy will jump from 76.7 years in 2005 to 86.5 in 2041. The life expectancy for women is predicted to go from 81.5 years in 2005 to 88.2 in 2041.
• The incidence of cancer was slightly higher in women than in men from 1994 to 2007 with 196,240 cases of cancer diagnoses in females and 185,315 diagnoses in men.
• Statistics from 2009 showed that there were 74,278 live births in the country – pretty much 50/50 boys and girls – and that the average number of children an Irish woman will have, based on those stats, is… ahem… 2.07.
• Exactly one-third of all babies born in 2009 were born to single mothers. (Single mothers is very literally interpreted by the statisticians as women who are not married to the father of their child).
• Figures from Irish maternity hospitals in 2008 found that the average age of mothers giving birth that year was 31.3 years and the average interval since the birth of their last child was 3.86 years. The figures also claim that 44.7 per cent of mothers were breastfeeding during the first days after having their baby.
• For more tables on births, deaths, cancer, demographics, psychiatric inpatients and hospital admissions, click here>