HC Deb 07 February 1972 vol 830 cc265-6W
Mr. William Shelton

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the estimate of the number of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland resident in this country in 1969, 1970 and 1971.

Mr. Sharples

The only relevant information is drawn from the 1961 Census of Population in Great Britain, which showed that 684,000 persons enumerated had been born in the Irish Republic, and 42,000 in an unspecified part of Ireland. Of the total, 709,000 were resident in Great Britain; and this figure is estimated to have risen to 739,000 at the time of the 1966 Sample Census. In the Northern Ireland Census of 1961, 53,000 people enumerated had been born in the Irish Republic. The results of the 1971 Census are not yet available.