The number of Muslims and Orthodox Christians in the Republic has increased significantly over the past ten years while the percentage of citizens who professed to be Roman Catholics fell to under 90 per cent, according to figures from the Central Statistics office.
The Muslim population more than quadrupled to 19,000 between 1991 and 2002 the census figures show. The number of Orthodox Christians in the State increased from less than 400 adherents in 1991 to over 10,000 in 2002.
Immigration has had a major impact on the increases with non-Irish nationals making up 70 per cent of the Muslims and over 85 per cent of those of the Orthodox faith who were usually resident and present in the State on Census night in 2002.
The long-term decline in the Church of Ireland has also been reversed, according to the figures.
There were sizeable increases in the numbers of people belonging to the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist faiths between 1991 and 2002 - reversing the long-term decline recorded for these denominations during the course of previous decades.
The number Roman Catholics increased by 234,300 from 3,228,300 in 1991 to 3,462,600 in 2002.
However, taking account of the 11.1 per cent increase in the population overall since 1991 the share of Roman Catholics in the population actually fell from 91.6 per cent to 88.4 per cent in the relevant period.
The number of persons who indicated that they had no religion increased from 66,000 in 1991 to 138,000 in 2002. Almost half of those without a religion were aged between 20 and 39 years and of these 60 per cent were males.
