Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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1403. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development to list the deprivation rates in each of the electoral areas of Ennis, Ennistymon, Killaloe, Kilrush, and Shannon, in County Clare for each of the years 2011 to 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2971/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Pobal HP Deprivation Index is Ireland’s primary social gradient tool, used by many Government Departments, including my own, and state agencies for the identification of disadvantage, in order to target resources towards communities most in need.

The Index is a robust and reliable tool, using data from Ireland’s census to identify relative levels of affluence or disadvantage across geographic areas throughout the country.

The current iteration of the Index uses data from Census 2022, analysing ten measures of an area’s levels of disadvantage. These include educational attainment, employment status and the numbers living in individual households. More detailed information on the index can be found on the Pobal website at .

The below table sets out a breakdown of HP Deprivation Index scores for the County Clare Electoral Areas of Ennis, Ennistymon, Killaloe, Kilrush, and Shannon for each of the years 2011 to 2024.

The current Local Electoral Areas (LEA) reflect the changes as defined in the Local Electoral Areas Order 2018. Prior to 2018, the Local Electoral Areas of Ennistymon and Kilrush had not come into effect, and the electoral area of West Clare comprised of both at that time. As such specific HP Deprivation Index scores for those areas are not available prior to 2018.

For the purposes of making the data comparable when looking back at the other Local Electoral Areas data, the West Clare 2022 Deprivation Index score has been recalculated using a weighted average from the Ennistymon and Kilrush Local Electoral Areas.