CSO: People continuing to travel further than 10km from home
To During Anonymised The (sli) One Sixth Mobile Used Aggregated A And Movements Denis Local Records Report Public’s Picture: Staying Phone Week File Period The Minihane Indicator Cso’s Calculate
People in every county are travelling further than 10km from their home despite Covid-19 restrictions, according to new statistics.
Carlow, Roscommon and Mayo were the counties with the lowest percentage of people remaining within 10km of their home during the first week of this month.
New data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that people living in more urban areas, where services are accessible, were more likely to remain in their locality.
The CSO’s sixth Staying Local Indicator (SLI) report used aggregated and anonymised mobile phone records to calculate the public’s movements during a one-week period.
The figures show that, while the majority of people have been adhering to current public health restrictions, significant numbers of people are still travelling outside their locality.
Nationally, 64% of the population stayed close to home from February 26 to March 5 – the same level recorded one week perviously.
An estimated 63.8% of the population stayed local (within 10km of home) during the week ending 05 March 2021 according to the Staying Local Indicator (SLI), a seven-day rolling averagehttps://t.co/BUjWTVbL0b #CSOIreland #Ireland #COVIDIreland #Health #SocialImpact pic.twitter.com/e2jnrjR3Xg
— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) March 15, 2021
Nine counties – Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Kerry, Mayo, Galway, Dublin, Limerick and Louth saw SLI increases, with more people staying close to home.
Dublin continues to be the county with the highest adherence (77.6%).
Carlow (1.85%) and Kilkenny (1.4%) saw the biggest SLI decreases, meaning more people were travelling further than 10km from their homes in these counties.
Increases were also recorded in Tipperary, Wicklow, Waterford, Meath, Kildare, Laois, Monaghan, Cavan, Longford, Cork, Wexford and Offaly.
Westmeath, Donegal and Clare saw no significant SLI increase or decrease that week.
A CSO spokesperson said propensity to stay within 10km of residence tends to differ by county.
"Movement is impacted by local circumstances and conditions, such as access to services and levels of urbanisation," the spokesperson said.
"For example, Dublin, with a high level of urbanisation, consistently shows the highest percentage of persons staying local, while Carlow and Roscommon, with relatively lower levels of urbanisation, are among the counties with the lowest percentage of persons staying within 10km of home."