More people are on the move but the numbers who are leaving their local areas remains steady, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) suggest.
An estimated 65.1 per cent of the population stayed local (within 10km of home) during the week ending March 19th, according to the Staying Local Indicator (SLI), a seven-day rolling average which monitors movement during the Covid-19 pandemic.
That’s a slight decrease on the 65.7 per cent of people staying local in the week ending March 12th.
The number of people who stayed within 10km of home fell to 52.3 per cent during Christmas week when restrictions were lifted on travel.
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It peaked at 68.7 per cent on February 7th during the present lockdown and has plateaued since.
Twenty-two counties showed SLI decreases, indicating that more people moved beyond 10km of home during the week ending March 19th ranging from 1.7 per cent in Kerry and Wexford to 0.2 per cent in Meath.
Dublin continues to be the county with the highest percentage of the population staying local (80.2 per cent) reflecting its urbanised nature and access to services compared to other counties.
Mayo is the only county where less than half of the population (49.9 per cent) stayed local.
The indicator provides daily estimated percentages of county populations that have stayed within 10km of home, averaged over the preceding seven days.
Meanwhile, gardaí said they had issued fines worth over €1.6 million for breaches of Covid restrictions since the start of the pandemic.
The figures were released by gardaí as they prepared to resume a heavy checkpoint presence on roads over the Easter weekend.
“An Garda Síochána over the coming days will be further increasing the level of activity on the road network, and in public spaces and amenities,” it said as the country prepared for the bank holiday.
Fines issued to March 25th include €1.2 million for non-essential travel (12,336 fines); €360,500 for non-essential journeys to airports and ports (721 fines); and €31,300 for non-essential travel by persons not ordinarily resident in the State (313 fines).
“Once again this Easter Period you are being asked to stay at home to protect yourself, your family, your relatives and friends,” said Deputy Commissioner for policing and security Anne Marie McMahon
“The Public Health regulations remain in place, including restriction on travelling outside of your home. Members of An Garda Síochána are working hard to support communities during this time.”
On Monday, the Garda recommenced its high profile static checkpoint rollout on both motorways and dual carriageways, supported by local mobile checkpoints on surrounding and parallel routes.
“These regulations provide for travel restrictions outside a persons place of residence except for a reasonable excuse or necessary journey,” the Garda said.
