As part of the Census 2016 processing programme places of work, school and college were geo-coded. All workers resident in Ireland on Census night were coded to their place of work and all Irish resident students from the age of 5 and upwards were coded to their place of school/college. A detailed microdata file containing demographic and socio-economic characteristics of these residents along with information on the origin and destination of their journeys has been made available for analysis.
The POWSCAR is only available under strict conditions to bone fide researchers who are approved by CSO. For more information on the Research Microdata application procedure please see here.
For further details on the file content and the POWSCAR user guide please see the following link:
To access the Research Microdata File (RMF) Policies, please click the link below:
Using information coded from question 34 in Census 2016 for POWSCAR, CSO has developed a set of aggregate commuting counts. These counts are presented at electoral division (ED) and county level.
The counts are based on origin and destination EDs for workers and students who are usually resident in Ireland. The counts include persons who work from home and persons who had no fixed place of work.
Journeys by workers and students from the Republic of Ireland to destinations in both Northern Ireland and overseas are included.
In order to maintain confidentiality, the following measures have been taken prior to publication:
The variables on the file are as follows:
RESIDENCE_ED_GUID Geographic Unique Identification (GUID) Code for origin Electoral Division (ED)
RESIDENCE_CSOED CSO ED code for origin ED
RESIDENCE_CSOED_LABEL Name of origin CSO ED
RESIDENCE_COUNTY County code for origin county
RESIDENCE_COUNTY_LABEL Name of origin county
POWSC_ED_GUID GUID for destination ED
POWSC_CSOED CSO ED code for destination ED
POWSC_CSOED_LABEL Name of destination ED
POWSC_COUNTY County code for destination county
POWSC_COUNTY_LABEL Name of destination county
COUNT Number of persons commuting
Note : The file was updated on 31/8/2017 to coincide with the release of the Census 2016 report on commuting. For more detailed tabulations on commuting destinations within Northern Ireland, please contact census@cso.ie.