Irish people travelled abroad in much greater numbers in May than in the same month last year, but visitor numbers to Ireland showed only the slightest rise.
Figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today show there were 665,500 overseas trips by Irish residents in May, compared with 603,700 in May 2006 - an increase of 61,800.
There were 714,600 overseas trips to Ireland in May, compared with 710,700 the previous May - a rise of just 0.5 per cent.
The number of visitors from Britain in May increased by 5,200 or 1.4 per cent on last May. But visits from other European countries showed a drop of 3,200 to 221,100 - the fall mirroring in percentage terms the rise in visits from Britain.
From January this year to the end of May, there were nearly 1.5 million visitors to Ireland from Britain, a drop of nearly 4 per cent on the same period in 2006.
In contrast, the number of visitors from other European countries between January and May was 919,000, an increase of some 17 per cent, or 134,400 on the same five-month period last year.
Visits from North America were also up slightly (2 per cent) in the five months to May, with 327,300 trips here compared to 320,000 in 2006.
The number of visits to Ireland from other parts of the world in the same period was 102,800, up by 9,900 (10.7 per cent).