These Irish birth numbers seem fishy to me...

The Indo reports non-EU birth rates falling in the wake of the citizenship referendum.

Dr Keane said before the referendum that 16pc of the deliveries at the
hospital were to non-EU women and 5pc to mothers from other EU countries.
Since the referendum, mothers from the EU now account for 16pc of births,
while those outside the EU make up just 5pc, he told irishhealth.com.

If the referendum scared all those supposed 'citizenship tourists' away, how come the number of EU births jumped so much? Let's do some quick math. Take 100 births. 16 to non-EU (we're meant to think the likes of Nigeria, but also include the US and Australia), 5 to other EU (think English and French). That leaves 81 / 100 births to Irish-national parents (or at least Irish mothers).

Now, post-referendum, take away a bunch of non-EU births, because the parents can't or don't want to come into the country to give birth. We would assume the 5pc EU births stay unchanged, since presumably EU citizenship wasn't a goal of parents already in the EU, and these happen naturally with tourism and legal migrant workers. But that's impossible with these numbers -- even if non-EU birth fell to zero, 5/(81+5) is only about 6%, not 16%, of births. Something else changed.

Several possiblities:

1) Indo got its facts wrong. wouldn't be surprised.

2) Something changed in EU-birth accounting. Something, I suspect, like adding Poland, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and a bunch of other higher birthrate countries.

3) Something changed in Irish birth accounting. The something, I suspect, is a bit harder to come by, but I find it tough to believe that the Irish share remained perfectly unchanged.

4) Something changed to scare non-EU parents away from Ireland. The something, I suspect, was in the fact the referendum. I suppose someone is quite proud of this one.

My opinion, mostly (2), a bit of (1), and sadly a successful (4). I'll see what else I can to confirm.