People in Leitrim have furthest to travel to childcare, CSO survey shows

People live on average 5.6km from a remote working hub and 1.6km from a childcare service, new data published by Central Statistics Office shows.

In an update to the CSO’s 2019 report measuring distances to everyday services, the State information service found that people in Donegal had the furthest to travel to a remote working hub, at 8.9km, followed by Cork county and Meath, at 8.4km.

More than eight in 10 homes across the State were less than 10km away from a work hub, while almost six in 10 homes were less than 1km away from a childcare service.

People living in Leitrim had the longest distance to travel to a childcare service, at 3.2km, followed by people in Roscommon (3km) and Mayo (2.9km).

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City dwellers had the shortest distances to both work hubs and childcare facilities. Homes in Dublin city were on average just 400m from a childcare facility. Almost six in 10 homes were situated less than 5km from a work hub.

Homes in Cork city were on average just 1.6km away from remote working hubs, followed by homes in Dublin city and Galway city, at 2.1km away.

Statistician Dermot Kinane said that almost one in three residential dwellings in the State were situated less than 500m from a childcare service. “This doubled to two in three (66 per cent) for residents in Dublin city but was just 15 per cent for those located in counties Monaghan, Roscommon and Donegal,” he said.

The data shows distances people travel for remote working as hybrid working — partly from offices, work hubs or home — has become more commonplace since restrictions on communal working were imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic to stem the spread of the virus.

Homes in the more densely populated Dublin region were on average three km from a remote work hub while those in the more sparsely populated Border region, covering the counties of Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan and Sligo, were on average 7.1km from a hub.

More than a quarter of all residential homes in the Border region, the southeast covering Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford and the southwest covering Cork city and county and Kerry were 10km or more from a remote work hub.

Remote workers in Donegal had the longest to travel to a hub with almost four in 10, or 38.4 per cent of homes situated 1km or more from a remote work hub. This percentage was 35.2 per cent in Kilkenny and 33.5 per cent in Cork county.

The data shows the vast majority of people lived very close to childcare services: just 0.6 per cent of homes were 10km or more from a childcare service.

Almost 85 per cent of homes in the West, covering Galway city and county, and Mayo, were less than 5km from a childcare facility. This proportion rose to almost all homes (99.9 per cent) in the Dublin region for people who have to travel the same distance.

The data has been published as the Government is progressing plans to support 400 remote working hubs across the State and provide facilities and high-speed broadband connections to allow as many people as possible to work remotely.

The aim of the national hub network is to allow employees and individuals living in rural Ireland to work and connect with services, employers and other businesses.

The CSO has previously looked at how close people in Ireland are living from common everyday facilities such as schools, hospitals, public transport stops, post offices and banks.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said the latest CSO data would feed into “a more comprehensive map of existing and planned hubs and childcare facilities.”

The Connected Hubs network, launched in 2021, is also being used to map existing hubs and to ensure under-served areas are identified to direct decisions around future funding, the department said.

A spokesman said the Government wanted remote and blended working “to be a bigger part of life after Covid and is putting in place the infrastructure, laws and regulations to make it easier for people to have the option.”

The Government has invested €109 million to support remote working hubs across the State.