You are right concerning Italy. I believe abortion has been legal for more than 20 years.
Concerning Ireland; I believe I read recently that the birth rate is too low to be self substaning.
POPULATION NEWS A Declining Population No Joke
Some people in Irish media circles sought to make a joke of the Popes address to the Italian Parliament on Italys declining birth rate.
However, Irishcommentators seemed unaware that the birth rate in Ireland is now well below replacement level. What we seem unable to grasp is that for the past half dozen years or more, the Irish birth rate has dipped well below the natural replacement level, and remains there.
Twenty years ago we had a birth rate of 21.5 per 1000, but by the year 2002, this had fallen to 14.3 per 1000. The effect of population implosion across Europe and much of the western world is no joke. Already the United Nations demographers are worried.
Those who are pushing the anti-life policies of the contraceptive movement, with claims that the worlds population would soon be too large, are now ready to admit that a declining population in the major economies of the world will create major headaches.