Father's Day: According to Census 2016, there were 673,609 fathers in Ireland

According to the 2016 Census, there were 673,609 fathers in Ireland, of which 568,317 were part of a married couple with children.

75,587 were part of a cohabitating couple with children and 29,705 were one parent fathers with children.

The number of cohabitating couples with children increased by 25.4% since Census 2011. There were 25,627 or 4.0% more fathers than in 2011.

My Father’s Eyes

Of the 29,705 one parent fathers, 5,537 were single, 2,227 were married, 6,460 were separated, 3,791 were divorced and 11,690 were widowed.

Overall there are 674 more one parent fathers in Ireland in 2016, an increase of 2.3%.

Family comes first

The total number of children in families increased by 56,626 (3.5%) to 1,682,601 in 2016.

The number of children of married couples increased by 18,846 (1.6%) to 1,188,160.

The number of children to cohabitating couples rose 32.1% to 138,238 and the number of children of one parent fathers rose by 75 (0.2%) to 43,962.

Where do babies come from?

Nationality of fathers: Of the 67,295 births in 2014, 51,038 or 75.8% were born to Irish fathers while 16,257 were born to fathers of other nationalities or not stated.

A Boy Named Sue

James and Emily were the most popular babies’ names in 2016.

Of the fathers of the future, the top five boys’ names, James, Jack, Daniel, Conor and Sean have been in the top five since 2007 with minor changes to their order.

For boys, the names Muhammad, Louis, Lucas, Josh, Jason and Ollie have had the most growth in popularity.

Muhammad jumped 36 places in the rankings since 2015, up from 119 to 83 in 2016 to make it the only new entrant into the top 100 names for boys.

Back in 1966, John, Michael, Patrick, James and Paul were the names most favoured by parents of new born baby boys.

Willow, Matilda, Harper, Heidi and Zoey have shown the most growth in popularity in girls’ names between 2015 and 2016 and these together with Aria were the only new entrants into the top 100 names for girls in 2016.

Willow was ranked 72nd in 2016 up 49 places from 121 in 2015. Matilda also improved position, up 49 places in the ranking from 146 in 2015 to 97 in 2016.

If I had a hammer...

As tools and equipment for house and garden are often considered as presents for Father’s Day, the good news is that according to the Consumer Price Index the prices have dropped 3.7% since 2016.

Eating out in restaurants has increased in price by 1.8% but if you don’t have a babysitter then you could have a pizza/quiche at home, which is 11.1% cheaper than last year.

For popular drinks options, a bottle of wine from the off-license is 5.2% cheaper than 2016, or a mineral water which is 1.5% less expensive, or a soft drink which costs 3.6% less than last year.

If you can afford to, why not buy him a Mercedez Benz? There were 6,230 licensed for the first time last year, while up to May 2017 there were 4,934 licensed for the first time.

If he likes smaller cars then there were 119 Porsches licensed for the first time in 2016.

Volkswagen (15,094) was the most popular make of new private cars licensed in 2016, followed by Toyota (14,728), Hyundai (14,630), Ford (14,092) and Nissan (11,503).

Together those five makes represent half (49%) of all new private cars licensed.

If heavier engineering is his thing, there were 3,842 tractors licensed for the first time in 2016, while at the other end of the scale, 3,750 motorcycles were licensed for the first time over the same time period.