DISABILITY GROUP CAMPAIGN TO HIGHLIGHT THE BLOCKING OF PUBLIC PATHS IN COUNTY

LATEST FIGURES FROM THE CSO SHOW NUMBERS ARE ON THE RISE

THERE are almost 18,000 people in County Louth living with a disability, new figures from the CSO have revealed.

The latest statistics from the 2016 Census show the number of people in the county living with a disability is on the rise, up from 15,932 (13% of the population) in 2011 to 17,881 (13.9% of the population) five years later.

Of these, 8,732 (48.8%) were male and 9,149 (51.2%) were female.

The numbers living with disabilities in Louth is slightly higher than the national level of 13.5%.

In April 2016, the majority of those living in Louth said their health was either ‘very good’ (75,029 people, 58.2%) or ‘good’ (36,279 people, 28.1%), compared with 60.0% ‘very good’, and 27.8% ‘good’ in 2011.

The 1.8% (2,381 people) who stated that their health was ‘ bad/very bad’ was above the percentage at national level, and a 15.6% increase on the 2,060 who stated that their health was ‘ bad/very bad’ in 2011.

The figures also show that 8,447 people indicated that they had ‘a difficulty with pain, breathing, or any other chronic illness or condition’, while 1,632 indicated they had blindness or a serious visual impairment and 2,764 had deafness or a serious hearing impairment.

The 5,352 people who stated that they ‘provided regular unpaid personal help for a friend or family member with a longterm illness, health problem or disability’ comprised 4.2% of the county¡s population in April 2016.

This was an increase of 404 people (8.2%) on 2011.

Of the carers in the county, 3,257 were female (60.9%), and 2,095 were male (39.1%). There were 113 carers under 15, compared with 95 in 2011. Carers provided 179,081 hours of care per week, an average of 38.5 hours per carer per week. The total amount of weekly care hours was an increase of 12,811 hours (7.7%) on 2011.