How Full Is Ireland? - Update 1
Q4 2022 mobile numbers are in!
In the opening substack in this series - How Full Is Ireland?, the idea was introduced of using mobile phone connections to get a more accurate and up-to-date count of the total resident population.
Now with the latest figures compiled by Comreg completing 2022, it’s time to look see is there actually a correlation.
Something happened on the way to 2022
The below chart shows a strong correlation between mobile connections and CSO population estimates including the last Census, but something happened on the way to 2022 that started in 2021.
Total Mobile Voice and Data., Q4 2022 = 5,576,759
Blue = mobiles | Red dotted line = Mobile trend | Orange = CSO estimates | Orange bar Q2 2022 is actual Census preliminary data.
The preliminary population on Sunday 3 April 2022 was 5,123,536 persons
Invasion, of Privacy
It has been noted that those “unvetted…military aged men” seem to so very easily lose their passports and documentation, but somehow manage to hang onto their smartphones, let’s suppose an invasion of privacy trumps those engaged in an invasion of a country, and asking any questions is classed as improper, possibly very traumatising by the horrible, nay deplorable “far-right” uppity natives.
Whatever is the case, 2021 marks a massive change in the trend too impossible to ignore. In the most recent comparable quarters, where both Mobile & CSO data exist Q1 2021 vs Q2 2022, the net changes look like this:
Mobile - 356,694 (increase)
CSO - 112,036 (increase)
Q1 2021 Vs Q4 2022 is the “something happened” period, and the net change shows an increase of 620,790 mobile connections to the network during that period.
Does this point to a mass incursion of people into Ireland in a very rapid time frame, if the correlation between mobile and CSO stats is reliable, then there is a strong argument to say yes, yes it certainly does, in trend terms, but exact numbers, again, it seems so incredible, is it really that much.
As indicated in the previous substack, it really could mean there are hundreds of thousands more people who have entered the country than can be officially or practically acknowledged by the CSO data.
If you were hunting for the prime culprit, or the root cause of the acute demand pressures felt across housing, health and more recently the horrific reports of a surge in crime in Ireland.
Then a sudden sharp incursion of hundreds of thousand of people in less than 2 years with possibly more males than females from very incongruent cultures from across the world, has to be the prime suspect.
Hey, but wait, I have two mobiles
One for social life, one for work life - does this explain the surge in mobile connections from 2021 to 2022?
Did a new trend take hold where everyone needs two active sim connected mobiles and is happy to fork out accordingly?
Previous years show a very stable correlation, where this strong and sustained divergence not happen.
There is no immediate answer for this because that data is not presently available, but insights in the comments section by way of links, pointers and analysis are broadly welcomed to help clarify this segment of the “market”.
Closing thought
Since the previous substack was published, or more correctly between the 3rd and 4th quarters 2022, active active mobile connections increased by 233,133.
That’s it for now, a very quick update because the comreg numbers are hot off the press and make for compelling inquiry and need to be seen asap by all.
You can now follow the twitter account here: https://twitter.com/Ireland_Is_Full
Notes:
In the previous substack, two categories were introduced, one being Mobile Voice and Data Subs. (3G&4G Networks), this was the focus of update 01 and chart source using the latest tabular data released, the label for this category now appears to be Mobile Voice and Data Subscriptions using 3G/4G/5G Networks, seems straight forward enough.
References:
Comreg - https://www.comreg.ie/industry/electronic-communications/data-portal/tabular-information/
CSO - https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpr/censusofpopulation2022-preliminaryresults/introduction/
Previous Series Substack: