More Kilkenny residents moving outside restricted 10km ‘home zone’ – new figures
More residents in Kilkenny are starting to creep further than 10km from their homes during, according to new data.
The Staying Local Indicator (SLI), issued by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reveals 61% of Kilkenny residents did not travel further than 10km at any point during that week. This a drop of 1% on the previous week.
The CSO said this could be down “some relaxation of mobility behaviour”.
The CSO data is gathered in conjunction with Ireland’s mobile phone operators which provide mobile phone activity/ However, the phones are not tracked and the CSO stresses it does not have access to personal data or individuals’ movements.
Nationally, an estimated 66.7% of the population stayed local (within 10k of home) during the week ending 12 February 2021, down more than two percentage points on the previous month when there was 68.6% adherence.
Dublin continues to be the county with the highest percentage of the population staying local (79.7%), while Roscommon was at the bottom of the list at 51.7%.
A CSO spokesperson said: “Propensity to stay within 10km of residence tends to differ by county, as movement is impacted by local circumstances and conditions, such as access to services and levels of urbanisation.
“For example, Dublin, with a high level of urbanisation, consistently shows the highest percentage of persons staying local, while Mayo and Roscommon, with low levels of urbanisation, have the lowest percentage of persons staying within 10km of home.”
