City dwellers have higher incomes than people living in countryside, CSO finds

Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said people in rural Ireland are 'very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that ‘we’re the real workers, we’re the ones paying all the bills, we’re the ones feeding the country’' Photo: Mark Marlow/PA

Household income for those living in cities is significantly higher than that of those living in the most rural areas of Ireland, new figures have shown.

Coming just a few days on from Leo Varadkar’s controversial comments on the rural-urban divide, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has published a detailed breakdown of factors such as income, housing, health and education, broken down by how rural or urban a place is.

It said that commuter towns with populations between 1,500 and 50,000, where more than one in five work in a city, had the highest household disposable income in the country at €76,246, while cities had the second-highest household income at €66,131.

It said that rural areas with “high urban influence” had the next highest income at €62,446, while highly rural areas had the lowest at €40,839.

In terms of property prices, the median price of a home in the State in 2024 was €357,499. This rose to €435,000 for homes in cities, but fell to €210,000 in highly rural or remote areas.

On physical wellbeing, CSO statistician Dylan Morrissey said: “More than half (53.2%) of people described their health as very good in 2022.

“People living in rural areas with high urban influence were more likely to say their health was very good, at 58.4%, while those in urban towns had the lowest proportion at 48.5%.” 

Also, while cities had the highest proportion of people who had at least a third-level degree at 40%, the lowest was in highly rural and remote areas at 24.3%.

Leo Varadkar's comments

The statistical breakdown of rural and urban life comes after comments from former taoiseach Leo Varadkar last week on the divide, which provoked significant debate.

On Matt Cooper’s Path to Power podcast, Mr Varadkar said people in rural Ireland are “very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that ‘we’re the real workers, we’re the ones paying all the bills, we’re the ones feeding the country’”.

“I think we maybe need to be a little bit more blunt in urban Ireland and say actually, that’s not the case,” Mr Varadkar said. “We’re the ones paying all the bills, and you’re the ones in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don’t get.” 

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On Tuesday, Irish Farmers Association (IFA) president Francie Gorman rejected Mr Varadkar’s comments.

Speaking on Newstalk’s Claire Byrne show, Mr Gorman said “the idea that you can have a rural-based economy in Ireland and not have agriculture at the backbone of it, just doesn't stand up”.

“I mean, I think last year we exported €19bn worth of food products,” he said. “I think we imported about three.

“We saw in 2008 when the financial crash hit, the importance of having an indigenous industry, farming and tourism are the two industries that we have, and they need to be supported. And we've given really good value as farmers for the supports we've gotten, and we continue to do it.”