NEARLY 30% OF people in Ireland live within 5km of an emergency department, according to a new report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Ireland’s national statistics office published a new report today called Measuring Distance to Everyday Services in Ireland. It combined data from multiple sources to show how close or far away Irish people live from common facilities such as schools, GPs and public transport stops.

The report found that a bus stop was the closes public transport option for 93% of the population. For 5% of people, a train station is the closest public transport option.

One-fifth of Ireland’s population lives less than 500 metres from a pharmacy. Two-thirds of people live within 2km of a GP, while 4% live 10km or more away. 

Dermot Corcoran, a CSO statistician said the results indicated people in the counties of Galway, Donegal, Mayo, Leitrim and Roscommon had higher average distances to most of these services compared to other counties.

A large difference in distance can be seen between rural and urban areas. For example, a full-time operating garda station is 14.7km away from people living in rural Ireland on average, but just 3.7km away in urban areas. 

Nearly one-third of the population overall lives 10km or more from a garda station operating 24 hours a day. This figure ran as high as 70% in Galway county and 64% in Leitrim.  

Infographic on some of the statistics, CSO CSO

People live around 20km from their nearest A&E department across the country, but in Dublin city this stands at 3km. 

A secondary school is 3.8km away for the average person in Ireland and a primary school is 1.5km away.  

Over 400,000 people live within 2km of a Luas station. For post offices, 60% of people live within a 2km distance, but this figure can range from 97% in Dublin city to 29% in Roscommon.