This new report, ‘Measuring distance to everyday services in Ireland’, analyses how close or far away people in Ireland live from everyday facilities, (such as schools, hospitals, public transport and post offices), and provides insights on the differences in service accessibility at regional and local level.
The demand for data and insight continues to grow unabated. The growth is not just apparent in terms of the broad range of themes (e.g. globalisation, productivity, well-being, sexual violence) that Official Statisticians are being asked to provide information on but also in relation to the level of detail being required in the analysis (e.g. geographical detail, socio-demographic variables, foreign/domestic company ownership). It is clear that the range and depth of demand cannot be met from survey data alone but through analysis of new data sources including administrative records held by public sector bodies and some emerging private data sources.
To extract insight from data, the data needs to be organised and structured appropriately which turns what once were "data silo's" into integrated and rich sources of insight. This report highlights the benefits to decision makers and to the people of Ireland of one part of the National Data Infrastructure (NDI), namely the EIRCODE, as it provides tangible and practical examples of aggregated statistical insight that can be gleaned from data sources when they are organised and structured appropriately.
This publication originates from a memorandum of understanding signed between Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) and CSO where both agencies agreed to collaborate towards:
OSi and CSO are working together on research projects that demonstrate the importance of integrated statistical and geospatial data sources in developing the NDI. The core concept of the NDI involves the collection, maintenance and storage, on all public sector data holdings, of the associated PPSN, Eircode and Unique Business Identifier (UBI, to be developed) whenever they are relevant to Public Sector Body transactions with customers.The main objective of the NDI is to maximise the variety and volume of data available across the public sector to provide high quality information to Government, businesses and citizens.
There are four chapters in this publication:
1 General Results: looks at the average distances to services by county and by urban/rural divide.
2 Public Transport Services: gives an overview of the relationship between where people live and the frequency of services at public transport stops.
3 Health Services: shows how close or far people live from some health services.
4 Other Services: examines the distance between people and key amenities such as 24-hour Garda stations, post offices, banks, fire stations and leisure activities.
The findings in this report were based on a routing algorithm which measured the shortest-path distance from an origin, (the coordinates of all residential dwellings enumerated in Census 2016), to a destination, (the coordinates of various everyday services), using the OSi road network. The location of the various services were sourced from a range of providers, and further information can be found in the Background and Methodology.
General Results: The average distance to most everyday services for rural dwellings was at least three times longer than for urban dwellings. For supermarkets/convenience stores, GPs and pharmacies, the average travel distance was seven times longer for rural dwellings.
For urban dwellings, the average distance to a supermarket/convenience store, a GP, outdoor sports facility, a pharmacy, a primary school or a bus stop was less than 1km. *For rural dwellings, the average distance was less than 5km to a supermarket/convenience store, outdoor sports facility and primary school.
A breakdown of average distances by county shows that residents in Galway County, Donegal, Mayo, Leitrim and Roscommon had higher average distances to most everyday services when compared against other counties.
Overall, three out of every four Irish persons were living less than 5km from one or more of the following: Garda station, pharmacy, GP, post office, grocery shop, bus stop, outdoor sports facility and a primary school. A primary school was located within 5km for 98% of the population, which was the highest population catchment of any service in this study.
About 2.2 million people, (45% of the population), lived more than 20km from an HSE maternity department, which was the least accessible service in this report. This was followed by HSE adult emergency departments, with a travel distance of at least 20km for 1.8 million people, or 38% of the population.
Public Transport Services: The bus stop was the closest public transport option for 4.4 million persons, or 93% of the population.
For three in ten people, (1.4 million), the nearest public transport stop, (Bus, Train, or Luas), had at least 50 departures on a normal weekday. Of this total, 925,930 persons were living less than 500 metres to a public transport stop offering this level of service frequency.
Over 400,000 people lived within 2km of a Luas station, with the Luas Red Line accounting for 187,926 of this total. The Luas Green Line had 146,519 persons living 2km or less to a station, while the opening of the Luas Cross City Line in 2017 brought an extra 74,263 people within 2km proximity of a tram station.
Around 40% of workers who used the railway system to travel to work in 2016 lived less than 1km from the nearest train or Luas station. This percentage increased to over 70% for rail commuters living in Dublin City.
Health Services: Around 5% of the population, (257,035 people), lived 50km or more from an adult emergency department operated by the HSE, while 38,675 people, (0.8% of the population), had a travel distance of 75km or more.
One in three people living in Roscommon were more than 50km from an emergency department, the highest rate in any county, followed by Donegal (26%), Clare (25%) and Monaghan (22%).
Close to two-thirds of the population were living within 2km of a GP location, while 177,863 persons, or 4% of the population, lived a distance of more than 10km.
Over 1 million people throughout the State lived less than 500 metres from a pharmacy, just over one-fifth of the population. The closest pharmacy was within 500 metres of 57% of the population in Dublin City, or 315,570 people.
Other services: Just over 2 million people, or 43% of the population, lived less than 2km from a bank branch offering cashier services, while 900,000 persons lived more than 10km away.
Only 69,960 people lived more than 10km from their nearest post office, or 1.5% of the population. In contrast, six out of ten people, (2.9 million), lived within 2km of a post office.
There were 1.4 million Irish people, (30% of the population), living 10km or more from a Garda station operating on a 24-hour basis. Galway County, (126,068 people), had the highest proportion of persons over 10 km from a 24-hour Garda station at 70%, followed by Leitrim (64%), Donegal (61%) and Offaly (59%).
A local authority fire station was 10km or more from 783,750 people, (16.5% of the population), and 20km or more from 50,304 people.
* This sentence was amended on 29th November, 2019
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