Media Response
Click here to see media response around the country to the Liveability Index.
Property Prices Update
The Liveability Index has been updated to take into account the release of the 2021 median property prices by the Central Statistics Office. This has resulted in some relatively minor changes to the property price and overall liveability ranking of the counties. County Donegal replaces Roscommon as the county with the cheapest housing in the country. The top 5 counties in the overall index remain much the same with Wicklow dropping out of 5th place to be replaced by County Clare.
Questions & Answers
Why do the midland counties dominate the lower half of the index?
A combination of factors combine to push the midland counties down the overall rankings. Counties in the midlands close to Dublin (especially Kildare and Meath) suffer from high house prices. The natural amenity ranking tends to be lower for the midland counties due to a lack of a coastline and the fact that the mountains in Ireland tend to be concentrated around the coast. Finally, the sunniest counties in Ireland are located around the south and east coasts. The midland counties tend to be midtable in terms of sunshine. The top ranked county in the midlands for sunshine is Kildare (8th place).
Kilkenny is a city. Why isn't it included as a 'hub city'?
Kilkenny is officially recognised as a city but in order to classify as a hub city it also has to have a population exceeding 50,000. Kilkenny, with a population of 26,512, doesn’t meet this criteria. Drogheda, Dundalk, Swords, Bray and Navan all have higher populations than Kilkenny.
County Kildare has many natural amenities, why has it been given a score of 0 for this category?
Kildare is a beautiful county with many attractions but ranks at the bottom for natural amenities because of its lack of mountains, shortage of lakes and lack of a coastline. For each of the four categories (house prices, natural amenities, proximity to a city and sunshine), the top ranked county receives a liveability score of 100 and the bottom ranked county 0.
West Cork is one of the most scenic parts of the country, why does County Cork only rank 10th for Natural Amenities?
If West Cork was a county it may well rank at or near the top but County Cork covers a large area, the natural amenity score is the average for the whole county.
I have just read an article in the Sunday Times today regarding Ireland’s Liveability Index and I am not happy about it. How can two people make such claims and allow them to be widely disseminated in the press!? You even compare your survey to that of the Economists Global Liveability Index on your website. The Economist is an international journal of high repute which has been in existence for over a hundred years. They use 30 qualitative and quantitative indicators collated by experts compared to the 4 arbitrary ones that 2 people have decided to put together as a measure of “liveability” in your index. House prices could be considered a positive ‘liveability’ indicator by many people in that areas where prices are high are obviously popular. In this way Kildare would be more ‘liveable’ than many of the highly rated counties on your list. Your index is misleading and unreliable. To promote it as a valid guide to where people might think of relocating in a pandemic is deceitful.
Thank you for your comments. The following is our response to the points that you have raised.
We don’t compare our index to The Economist’s Global Liveability Index but merely point out that such indices exist for global cities but not for areas outside these cities. The global pandemic has accelerated a move to remote working and many people no longer need to live in or near large cities for work. People will then need to decide whether they wish to pay the high prices for property in or around large cities or relocate to areas where property is cheaper. For this reason, we believe that property prices is one of the most important parameters in the index. We understand that living in or near cities is appealing for many people, hence, the addition of the ‘proximity to city’ parameter.
Our data and the methodology that we used to arrive at our liveability scores is completely transparent and obtained from reputable sources. The index is a work in progress and we are committed to continuously improving it. We don’t have any hidden agenda, people can make up their own minds regarding the relevance of the index for them. We can’t control how the media reports or interprets the index.
Thank you for your reply but my point is that your index uses limited data of questionable relevance. I consider that your methodology is unconvincing . To reference the Economist’s index in your publicity is misleading. It is vitally important that information provided by an index such as yours is robust, accurate and not open to misinterpretation.
Thank you for your comments. The target audience for the index is those that are considering relocating, possibly due to the recent move to remote working. The index provides very useful information for those considering a move and helps to answer questions that will be near the forefront of people’s thoughts. The data is robust and accurate and sourced from reputable sources (eg the Central Statistics Office for property prices, Met Eireann for climate data). Our methodologies and data sources are clearly described and referenced. We believe that the users of the site are intelligent enough to use the data sensibly and combine it with research from other sources to help them decide on the location that best meets their requirements.
Thank you admin, I am sure your data is accurate but I question its validity. I would have no problem if you used it to describe the cheapest place to live, the sunniest place to live or as a comparison of how far a location is from a city. Your methodology for deciding on natural amenities is extremely questionable but to combine these four indices together and describe them as a “liveability index’ is just not plausible. I would think that most people who become aware of your index will do so through press headlines and media soundbites and few will go to the trouble of evaluating the validity of the background data..This could paint an inaccurate and unfair picture in the public mind of those counties that do not do well in your survey. The public perception of these counties is likely to be damaged with all the negative economic consequences that this entails and these counties and those that live in them have no means of redress. Now more than ever it is important that news is factual and not open to misinterpretation. While I accept that people who are looking to move will look in detail at the pros and cons of various locations and your website may be of help you do not seem to have addressed the wider issue of how the press coverage of your index has affected the public perception of lower rated counties and the damage that can cause. I think you do have a responsibility in this regard and should not simply state that you cannot control how the media reports the index
Sir, the Natural Amenity Index that we have developed is based on a published peer reviewed study that scores scenery based on the responses of over 200,000 people. The methodology that we use is similar to that used by the US Department of Agriculture in their Natural Amenities Scale (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/natural-amenities-scale/). They use topography, water bodies and climate to give a natural amenity score to the counties of the US. Our data driven methodology gives an index in which the Atlantic seaboard counties dominate the top 10. These are the counties that Irish and International tourists have visited in their droves for generations, presumably for the stunning scenery and natural amenities.
As scientists, we are trained to present all our data, methodologies and conclusions in an open and transparent way. We have been open about the sources of our data, our methodologies and our own backgrounds.
You appear to be suggesting that we should hide or censor our findings because the general public cannot be trusted to evaluate them properly or that the press cannot be trusted to accurately report on them. This is a very slippery slope to go down.
We do note the negative press coverage that some counties towards the bottom of the table have received. Therefore, in order to balance the desire to provide useful information to visitors to the site with the understanding that negative press coverage can be harmful we have decided to remove counties 16 to 26 from the overall ranking table and make the data available on demand.