The Government should be promoting marriage to help people, according to one broadcaster.
It comes as more than 7,000 births were registered as outside marriage or civil partnership in the country - accounting for 43.6% of all births in the first quarter of the year.
That is according to the latest statistics from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Wendy Grace is a broadcaster with Spirit Radio. She told Newstalk Breakfast the State should step in.
"I think that, for probably a lot of those people who've had babies outside of marriage, and certainly my own experience with friends and family, is that many of them plan to get married or want to get married.
"But they've just put it on the long finger, or delayed it for lots of different reasons.
"A lot of the time I think it's actually financial - therefore, I think it's up to the Government to try and promote and support marriage."
Married people 'happier in general'
She believes this would benefit everyone.
"It's good for you, because people who are married live longer, happier lives in general.
"It's good for society in general and it's good for our children - because people who are in happy, married relationships with children tend to do better.
"So why are we not having a conversation about 'Look it's a good thing' and encouraging people to do it."
And she said she thinks marriage deserves its special status.
"There's a reason I suppose across many societies throughout the world that marriage is given special status.
"Because people are less likely to separate if they're married, compared to when they're cohabitating.
"They have significantly higher levels happiness when they're married compared to cohabitating.
"And even things like they're less likely to cheat when they're married versus living together".
Asked if encouraging people to get married could be seen as stigmatising those who aren't, she said: "In an effort to try to not to upset or offend somebody, we're going to not talk about all these positive things.
"And I think that's where, sometimes, our efforts are just so focused on individual autonomy can actually do us all an injustice on the whole".
