Website offers one-stop shop for foreign investors
Such information would be very useful to a multinational looking to invest in a location with a young, educated workforce.
Local authorities and transport officials reviewing infrastructural shortfalls might also note that 37% of the Kerry population travel to school or work by car, compared to just 30% in Dublin.
Before this information retrieval involved sifting through many sources.
Now though, a website brings key demographic data onto a one-stop shop source of information.
Ordnance Survey Ireland and Twelve Horses have developed decisionmap.ie which they say is a “single information map”.
The free interactive website combines information from sources such as the census, Live Register and local authority data to give a picture of the needs, population levels and resources of every county.
Geraldine Ruane, Ordnance Survey chief executive, said: “This website will make it very easy to access complex data and to analyse it. It will be a powerful decision-making tool. We bring together authoritative data from a number of sources, and viewing this data on our information maps will help to highlight patterns that would otherwise be difficult to spot.
“For example, if you were an incoming business looking for a place to locate, you’d be able to look at an area and view on one easy-to-read map the number of third-level graduates, the level of unemployment, the number of houses and other socio-economic data.”
The creators point out that if a retailer was looking for a location for a premises, they could use the website to help identify customers by viewing census information.
The one issue is that, in some cases, the information is dated. For example, population totals are based on the census from 2006, which does not take into account the numbers who have left the country to find work.
* decisionmap.ie
* Education: Of the 481,295 people living in Co Cork, 2,055 have a doctorate, 19,341 have a third-level postgraduate diploma, 75,340 have a third-level qualification and 93,929 have completed second-level education
* Age profile: 20.2% is 0-14 years; 15% is 15-24 years; 31.4% is 25-44 years; 22.1% is 45-65 years and 11.4% is 65+.
* Transport to school or work: 51,185 walk or cycle to work, 29,236 take the bus or train and 198,995 take a car.
