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ANY PEOPLE are experiencing poor housing, unemployment, smoking etc and this is all contributing to poor health.

‘We have to focus not just on the actual health service but we also need to ensure we have things like access to jobs, adequate housing and proper services. I wasn’t a bit surprised by the statistics. Some people have the perception that Wexford is a wealthy area but it’s not the case. The social deprivation is quite stark both in urban and rural areas. Poverty and poor housing is being experienced across the board and isn’t confined to a couple of the big towns in the county. ‘When I was a TD it was very easy to see the problems that were out there and that were being experienced because of the social economic problems in Wexford.

‘That’s the reason why the people from Wexford that are elected to the Dail must continue to represent the county as best they can and to fight to additional resources.’

Nationally, 643,131 people, or 13.5 per cent of the population, indicated that they had a disability and the number of carers (people providing regular unpaid help for a friend/ family member) increased by 8,151 (4.4 per cent) to 195,263.

In Wexford the 22,650 people said they had at least one disability making up 15.1 per cent of the county’s population, compared with 13.5 per cent at national level. Of these, 11,172 (49.3 per cent) were male and 11,478 (50.7 per cent) were female.

10,612 people indicated that they had ‘a difficulty with pain, breathing, or any other chronic illness or condition’, while 1,801 indicated they had blindness or a serious visual impairment and 3,809 had deafness or a serious hearing impairment.

This is an increase of almost two per cent on the 2011 figures which showed that 20,134 people or 13.9 per cent of the population in the county had at least one disability.

A total of 6,023 people within the county said that they ‘provided regular unpaid personal help for a friend or family member with a long-term illness, health problem or disability’. This comprises 4 per cent of the county’s population and is an increase of 260 people compared to Census 2011.

Of the carers in the county, 3,738 were female (62.1 per cent) and 2,285 were male (37.9 per cent). There were 109 carers under 15, compared with 124 in 2011.

Carers provided 235,537 hours of care per week, an average of 44.7 hours per carer per week. The total amount of weekly care hours was an increase of 15,040 hours (6.8 per cent) on 2011. However not all carers indicated the number of care hours provided so the figures above relate solely to those who did so.

Deirdre Cullen, Senior Statistician, said: ‘Census 2016 was the second census in which the Irish public were asked to rate their own health so we can now make comparisons over time.

‘The report also provides detailed data and analysis on those with a disability while also examining changes in relation to carers, looking at issues such as the age and gender profile of carers, the number of carers in each county, and the hours of care provided.’