REVEALED: IT PAYS TO COMMUTE
CSO finds that people who live away from the workplace earn more...
LONG-distance work commuters are paid significantly more than those who live near the workplace, surprising new CSO figures reveal.
In some cases, the difference can be as much as €15,000 a year for employees who travel more than half an hour to work.
And these official Central Statistics Office figures only cover wages, so they have nothing to do with cheaper prices outside the cities. They also show that those who take their bike or motorbike to work are also in the higher paid bracket.
But, while the CSO outlines in detail which commuters are likely to earn the most, it offers no explanation for the extraordinary difference in wages.
Commuters in Co. Wicklow saw the
greatest difference in earnings, with those who travelled more than 30 minutes to get to work earning almost €15,000 more, on average, than those who don’t.
It was followed by Louth, where the gap was €13,407, and Westmeath, where it was €13,261. Cork City commuters saw no difference in average earnings based on travel time, while there was a difference of €1,532 for commuters in Dublin City and €3,223 for those in south Dublin.
The average income earned by commuters travelling ‘less than 30 minutes’ was €32,004, compared to €41,495 for those travelling ‘greater than 30 minutes’ in 2016, a difference of €9,491.
The study may well influence the national debate about the housing crisis – and whether or not we should be encouraging people to move out of our major cities and into the commuter belt.
According to the figures, motorcyclists travelling into Dublin had the highest average earned income of €47,689.
The next highest were for those travelling in Dublin on bikes, with €44,812, followed by train, Dart or Luas passengers earning €44,676.
Commuters who travelled ‘greater than 30 minutes’ into the capital had an average earned income of €43,727, compared to commuters travelling ‘greater than 30 minutes’ to other cities, €38,592, and to the rest of the country, €39,913.
The difference in earnings between travelling ‘less than 30 minutes’, €29,503, and ‘greater than 30 minutes’, €39,913, was highest for those travelling to the rest of Ireland, which was over €9,000.
These figures are part of the Central Statistic Office’s Geographical Profiles of Income in Ireland 2016 publication.
However, commuting is about to get more expensive, due to the carbon tax announced in Budget 2020 earlier this week. The measure will hit the pockets of the thousands of commuters who rely on petrol and diesel to travel to work every day.
On Tuesday, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe confirmed that the carbon tax will rise by €6, meaning the price of petrol and diesel increased from midnight that day.
The new funds generated by the increase will be ring-fenced for fuel-poverty measures and transition initiatives.
However, the hike is unlikely to sit well with the thousands of squeezed-middle workers in rural Ireland who are forced to rely on their cars to commute to work.
Environment Minister Richard Bruton said the price increase is offering people the opportunity to make a change, adding that ‘locking yourself into high-carbon infrastructure is dangerous for the country and dangerous for your own family’.
However, the tax, which proved to be the centrepiece of the Budget, attracted criticism from the AA, which claimed it proved the Government ‘care more about grabbing cash than they do about reducing carbon’.
‘If we are to make our transport cleaner, then major incentives, such as a diesel-toelectric scrappage scheme, investment in cycling infrastructure and funding for public transport, are what we needed to see in this Budget,’ spokesman Barry Aldworth wrote in the Irish Daily Mail this week.
‘Unfortunately, what we actually saw was a Government cynically exploit the climate crisis to justify a tax hike, while doing just enough in terms of funding for sustainable transport methods to maintain the illusion of a true climate Budget.’
Mr Aldworth said: ‘We needed an ambitious plan which would give people a reliable, viable alternative to the private car. Unfortunately, what we got was a Government with its eyes on the cash while the horse blinkers blocked out the wider crisis.’
Yesterday’s CSO report also revealed the highest household incomes in the country were in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in south Dublin, at an average of €66,203 a year. The lowest was €32,259 in Donegal, while the average gross income for households was €45,256 The statistics were compiled by the CSO from data collected from Revenue, the Social Protection Department with the CSO’s data. christian.mccashin@dailymail.ie
Highest difference is in Co. Wicklow