Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 December 2025
266. Deputy Gillian Toole asked the Minister for Health the examination and evaluation of the recently published Central Statistics Office figures for medical mortality that are taking place or scheduled to take place. [68408/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Central Statistics Office (CSO) publishes official statistics on deaths in Ireland through Vital Statistics publications. Vital Statistics reports are prepared by the CSO for the Minister for Social Protection in accordance with the provisions of Section 2 of the Vital Statistics and Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, 1952 and Government Order SI 831 of 2007.
The CSO publishes quarterly Vital Statistics on all registered deaths. The latest data available is for deaths registered in the second quarter of 2025 (www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-vs/vitalstatisticssecondquarter2025/published in November 2025). The CSO also publish a Yearly Summary of registered deaths. The latest Yearly Summary 2024 (www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-vsys/vitalstatisticsyearlysummary2024/) was published in May 2025. These reports record the number of deaths registered in that quarter or year. Information on deaths is only available for deaths which have been registered with the General Registers Office (GRO).
Data on deaths by date of occurrence is published by the CSO in the Vital Statistics Annual Report where all figures are classified by year of occurrence i.e. the year in which the death occurred. The latest Annual Report with data on deaths by date of occurrence is for deaths occurring in 2023 (www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-vsar/vitalstatisticsannualreport2023/). Deaths not registered with the GRO during the year of occurrence or the subsequent 22 months are not available for the Vital Statistics Annual Report and not included.
All deaths attributable to external causes are referred to the Coroner. Investigations can take a protracted length of time to complete. As such, these deaths are registered after the standard three-month time period, and can be later than the 22-month deadline for CSO annual Vital Statistics publications. To account for late registered deaths, the CSO also publishes ‘Revised Deaths Occurring’ data. The CSO will continue to revise these figures over time to take account of further late registrations.
The CSO are also responsible for submitting deaths data for Ireland to Eurostat to allow international comparison of mortality trends in Ireland.
In addition to the data on deaths published by the CSO directly, the Department of Health undertakes further analysis of CSO deaths data and publishes a series of Tables of data on age-standardised mortality rates by sex, county of residence, age group and cause of death for years up to 2024. The Department also publishes data on the Potential Years of Life Lost by sex, county, cause of death and age group. This data is made publicly available https://data.cso.ie/product/MORT.
The Department reviews and monitors data on mortality published by the CSO, as well as analysis undertaken by other organisations e.g. the National Cancer Registry of Ireland, the National Office of Clinical Audit, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, on mortality trends in particular areas. The Department also examines data published by OECD, Eurostat, WHO and other international organisations comparing Ireland’s mortality trends with international comparators.
