Press Statement

Preasráiteas

16 December 2019

Go to release: Urban and Rural Life in Ireland, 2019

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (16 December 2019) published Urban and Rural Life in Ireland, 2019. This publication presents a comprehensive analysis of the social and economic characteristics of life in Ireland, broken down by a six-way urban/rural classification:

• Cities
• Satellite urban towns
• Independent urban towns
• Rural areas with high urban influence
• Rural areas with moderate urban influence
• Highly rural/remote areas

Themes like income, housing, health, education and commuting patterns are examined.

Commenting on the report, Karola Graupner, Statistician, said: “Between 2011 and 2016, there was a fall of 0.6% in the number of people living in ‘Highly rural/remote areas’. The proportion of people living in all five other area types increased over this time period, with the largest increase of 5.5 % in ‘Independent urban towns’. In all, 33.4% of the population lived in ‘Cities’.

In Q1 2019, the average unemployment rate was 4.7%, although the area classification with the highest unemployment rate was ‘Independent urban towns’ at 6.3%, while the lowest was ‘Rural areas with high urban influence’ at 4.0%.

The average distance to a HSE adult emergency department was 20.1km in Ireland, with the shortest average distance of 4.4km in ‘Cities’ and the longest of 45.0km in ‘Highly rural/remote areas’.’”

Commenting further on the report, Declan Smyth, Senior Statistician, said: “This report is an example of the policy relevant research projects that the CSO are developing as part of its’ leadership role of the Irish Statistical System (ISS). Our goal is to maximise the variety and volume of data available, to provide high quality information to the Government, businesses and citizens. The CSO is in a unique position to gather and link administrative data sources with CSO held datasets and evaluate their potential for statistical use. Our aim is to ensure that citizens can live in an informed society while at the same time ensuring adherence to the relevant data protection legislation."

Editor’s Note:

This new CSO publication, ‘Urban and Rural Life in Ireland 2019’, adopts a methodology whereby an urban/rural six-way classification was developed based on place of work, as a measure of distance to services and amenities, combined with population density from Census 2016. This approach is to help address, for example, the underlying characteristics which might separate one rural area from another. Likewise, there are different degrees of urbanisation regardless of population size, because of proximity to services and amenities.

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