Kilkenny best place in rural Ireland to live for access to everyday services
County Kilkenny is one of the best places to live in the country in terms of ease of access to everyday services and facilities.
A new Central Statistics Offices report, titled ‘Measuring distance to everyday services in Ireland,’ reveals that outside the main urban areas of Dublin, Cork and Galway, Kilkenny ranks top in the country for how close people live to everyday services such as schools, hospitals, libraries and shops.
The report analyses how close or far away people in Ireland live from everyday facilities and provides insights on the differences in service accessibility at regional and local level.
Not only does county Kilkenny rank second for the average distance to services (only people in county Dublin travel less for services), the report reveals the average distance a person in the county has to travel for important services is well below the average for rural Ireland.
In terms of hospitals, proximity to 24/7 garda stations, fire stations, libraries, secondary schools, GPs, pharmacies, supermarkets, post offices and primary schools – people in Kilkenny are living either closer than the national average, or equal to the average.
The report reveals people in Kilkenny are on average 1.8km away from a primary school, 4.6km away from a secondary school and just 3.1km from a supermarket.
Three-quarters of Kilkenny’s population live within 20km of a HSE emergency department. In contrast, the entire population of Longford lives 20km or more from an emergency department. Over 99% of Carlow’s population lives more than 20km from the nearest A&E department at St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny.
More than 1.8 million people (38%) must travel at least 20km to avail of a HSE emergency department. In Kilkenny, the average distance to both is 13.5km.
Around 5% of the population nationally, (257,035 people), live 50km or more from an HSE emergency department, while close to 1% of the population (38,675) live 75km or more away.
The report revealed the service people must travel the furthest to avail of nationally is a HSE maternity hospital, with 2.2 million people (45%) living more than 20km away.
