The average age of mothers giving birth in Ireland is now nearly 32, according to latest figures.

Vital statistics for 2011 from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that the average age of mothers for births was 31.8 years.

A total of 29,210 births (39.5%) were to first time mothers in 2011. Mothers under 30 accounted for 34.7% of births in 2011 compared to 10 years previously (2001) when mothers under 30 accounted for 44.2% of births.

The number of births dropped by 1,141 in 2011 to 74,033. This is almost 28% higher than 10 years previously, when there were 57,854 live births.

The CSO stats also show that Ireland's fertility rate is dropping.

In 2011, the fertility rate for Ireland was 2.02, slightly lower than the rate of 2.06 in 2010.

The fertility rate is the projected number of children a woman would have if she experienced current age-specific fertility rates while progressing from age 15-49 years.

A fertility rate of 2.1 is considered to be the level at which the population would replace itself in the long run, ignoring migration, according to the CSO.

There were 28,456 deaths in Ireland in 2011, representing an annual death rate of 6.2 per 1,000 of the population, compared to 6.1 per 1,000 of the population in 2010.

There were 262 deaths of infants aged less than one year in 2011, giving an infant death rate of 3.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.

There were 554 deaths due to intentional self-harm in 2011, 458 or 82.7% were male while 96 or 17.3% were female. Deaths from suicide accounted for almost 2% of all deaths that occurred in 2011 compared to 1.8% of all deaths in that year.

View the full statistics here