The number of Irish people travelling abroad has increased by more than a million in five years, the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show.
Irish residents made some 4,194,500 overseas trips in the first eight months of this year, compared with 2,873,400 in 2001 - an increase of 1,321,100.
This represents an increase of 506,400 on the same period last year.
The figure has risen steadily since 2001, with 3,181,700 trips being made in 2002, 3,381,400 in 2003 and 3,688,100 last year.
Meanwhile there were 4,754,600 overseas visitors to Ireland this year to August, an increase of 203,700 on last year's figure.
Tourism Ireland welcomed this 4.5 per cent rise.
There was an increase of 2.5 per cent in the numbers coming from Britain - a rise of 54,600 visitors, to 2,573,300.
The number of visitors from "other European countries" - the EU states plus Switzerland - increased by 15 per cent: from 1,143,200 to 1,314,100.
The figures confirm statistics from Tourism Ireland, however, showing a fall of 4,700 in the number of North American visitors in the first eight months of 2005.
Numbers were down to 671,500 from 676,200 in the corresponding period last year.
This year's figure is higher than the low point of 2002, which saw numbers from North America plummet. In the January-to-August 2001 period, there were 682,800 visitors from North America.
The impact of 9/11 and the foot-and-mouth crisis saw that number fall by almost 100,000 in 2002, to 584,900.
Paul O'Toole, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, commented: " We are happy to see continued growth in overall visitor numbers. This has been underpinned by an excellent performance from Europe where Germany and Spain in particular have yielded very positive results, driven largely by the huge increase in direct air access."
