Households in rural areas are consistently more likely to report difficulty accessing basic services, including public transport, banks and groceries, a survey has found.
One in four households report difficulty accessing one or two such basic services, while 15 per cent of households have problems accessing three or more of them.
The figures are revealed in the annual Survey on Income and Living Conditions published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which analyses the responses of some 5,608 households in the State.
Questions were answered by the ‘head of household’ in relation to the accessibility of grocery services, banking services, postal services, public transport, general practitioner (primary healthcare) and primary and secondary school.
The question on access to school services was, however, only asked of households where there was at least one person in the household aged under 23 attending either primary or secondary school.
The majority of households (61 per cent) reported having satisfactory access to all of these basic needs or services, while a further 25 per cent reported that they have difficulty in accessing one or two of them.
Difficulty accessing public transport was the most frequently reported difficulty, being reported by more than one quarter (26 per cent) of responding households.
This was followed by difficulty accessing banking services (22 per cent). The least reported service was grocery services with 12 per cent of households stating they had difficulty accessing this service, the CSO said.
The most significant factor in determining access to services was the geographic location of the household.
Households living in rural areas were “consistently more likely to report difficulty in accessing basic services when compared with those living in urban areas”.
The CSO said accessibility of transport, banking and general practitioners were “particularly diverse” between urban and rural areas.
Just over half of all households in rural areas reported difficulty in accessing public transport compared with just 11 per cent of households in urban areas.A third of rural households expressed difficulty in accessing banking services and general practitioners, compared with 15 per cent and 11 per cent respectively of their urban counterparts.
On a regional basis, Dublin reported much lower rates of difficulty in accessing various basic services than the other regions.
Just 6 per cent of households in the Dublin region reported difficulty accessing public transport compared with 44 per cent of households in the border region, 39 per cent of households in th midland and south-east regions, and 34 per cent of households in the west region.
Households where the head of household was over 55 had more difficulty accessing services than those where the head of household was in a younger age group.
Over a third of households headed by a person aged 65 and over reported difficulty accessing public transport (35 per cent) and banking services (34 per cent). Some 29 per cent of such households had difficulty accessing a general practitioner.
In other findings, an overall 17 per cent of households reported dissatisfaction with their home.
The highest levels of dissatisfaction with their dwelling were reported by households renting at below the market rate (29 per cent) and by households in the border, midlands and west regions (all 20 per cent or higher).