Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Shutterstock/TijanaM

Rolling in it - the richest counties in Ireland are...

Latest figures from the CSO highlight worrying levels of indebtedness in the east of the country…

THE RICHEST HOUSEHOLDS in Ireland (after debt) are to be found in the south-east of the country, according to the Central Statistics Office’s Household and Finance Consumption Survey 2013 which was released today.

The average net household wealth in counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford and South Tipperary is €259,000, some €20,000 greater than the next wealthiest region, the mid-west (counties Clare and Limerick).

Net Wealth CSO CSO

On the other end of the scale, the households with the least net wealth on average are in the west of the country (Galway, Mayo and Roscommon) where the figure comes to €186,000.

The border region (Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan and Sligo) is the only other combined area to have an average of less than €200,000.

Net wealth is a calculation of values of all real and financial assets (houses and savings respectively for example) minus all debt (mortgages and other loans).

While the average of the Dublin region is firmly in mid-table in relation to the rest of the country, the vast majority of wealth in Ireland is still concentrated in and around the capital with 28.3% of the total share.

Wealth Dist CSO CSO

This makes a degree of sense given the skewed population ratio in favour of Dublin but the figure still qualifies as almost twice the share of wealth of the next wealthiest region, the South-West (Cork and Kerry). 

The lowest concentration of wealth in the country is in midlands counties Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath. Just 7% of Ireland’s debt-free money is concentrated there.

On the other side of the coin, the most indebted area of the country as a ratio to income is the mid-east region, or counties Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. The total for this area of 171% debt-to-income which suggests large loans that are unlikely to be serviced in full.

The best score from a debt point of view is in counties Cork and Kerry who rank just 65% debt as a proportion of income.

The state average for debt to income is 100.4% which firmly ranks us as a country used to living on credit.

Negative equity seems to be less of a problem than might be expected. The ratio of loan to value for principal residence mortgages stood at 73%.

Meath, Kildare and Wicklow again ranked worst from the point of view of mortgage loans to value, with a score of 91%.

Read: Irish people easily have the worst mortgage debts in the eurozone

Read: Going up: Irish property prices rose by 16.3% in 2014

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
32 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute VoiceOfVanguard
    Favourite VoiceOfVanguard
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 3:54 PM

    90,000 on the social housing waiting list, of which 50,000 non-nationals.
    That’s more than 55% of waiting list (non-nationals account for 13% of population).

    Why?

    104
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute steven23
    Favourite steven23
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 3:56 PM

    Coz they move here for our generous Social Welfare system

    93
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute johngahan
    Favourite johngahan
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 3:58 PM

    how about what % have criminal records, what % have more than 5 kids, what % have never worked a day in their lives, what % have been nasty neighbours in their previous social housing.

    87
    See 4 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute NatalieReaves
    Favourite NatalieReaves
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:30 PM

    Yes good news for non-EUers and other queue jumpers etc anxiously glued to their TV’s listening to news of the soft touch Ireland’s budget of what they can expect when they scam into Ireland. Free council house, more pay for each churn-out-child.

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute NatalieReaves
    Favourite NatalieReaves
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:41 PM

    IRISH QUEING FOR 7YRS LOSE OUT TO IMMIGRANTS
    From Nov 09 to March 2010, out of 19 council houses, allocated by Tralee council 11 went to immigrants. Many Irish people are on the housing waiting list, some waiting for 7yrs, and the houses are going to foreigners.
    Kerryman 14/4/10

    OVER HALF ON HOUSING LIST ARE FOREIGN
    MORE than half of the applicants for council homes in north Dublin are from abroad, new figures show.
    It is the first time that there have been more foreign than Irish people on Fingal’s social housing list.
    “For the first time, more than half those on the waiting list for social housing in Fingal County Council are non-Irish nationals. A third are from outside the EU,” Fine Gael’s Kieran Dennison said.
    http://www.herald.ie/news/over-half-on-housing-list-are-foreign-27973856.html

    42
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Damien Moran
    Favourite Damien Moran
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 6:32 PM

    Because they are the new working class.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paudi Onail
    Favourite Paudi Onail
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 11:23 PM
    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alan McLoughlin
    Favourite Alan McLoughlin
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 3:55 PM

    Great, 2.2bn to be spent on “social” housing for anti-social people…

    86
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bob Moore
    Favourite Bob Moore
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:07 PM

    Ah, the great Divide and Conquer debate with prejudice and disdain for the less well off. We’ve been expecting you, Come on in.

    31
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SeanieRyan
    Favourite SeanieRyan
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:10 PM

    Any couple on a combined income of less than 60k a year in Dublin city are looking at Social housing.

    Any individual on less than 50k a year is not going to afford a house out of a high social housing density area.

    The hubris of the past still lives but no one wants to face up to the numbers. Being poor is as cheap as ever but being middle class like we thought it was in the 90s and 00′s is not anymore and given the overwhelming % of people who live in households with less than 70k per annum, does the middle class exist anymore liked we imagined it.

    27
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute NatalieReaves
    Favourite NatalieReaves
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:34 PM

    tis true to an extent, over-weaning SW makes people irresponsible, have a look at the SW brats homes, places are in sh*t. Left to working class employed to clean their areas up while being abused for doing so. Some SW ok, the amount we have simply makes people spoilt and less responsible, a culture of expecting everything and for everything to be done for them.

    29
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SeanieRyan
    Favourite SeanieRyan
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:38 PM

    My post above is very much Carrie from Sex and the City monologue. It was on in the background and I got it like 2nd hand smoke.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pete Foley
    Favourite Pete Foley
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:04 PM

    More houses for local authority to have to maintain. higher Lpt for private houses

    28
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dan public
    Favourite Dan public
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 3:51 PM

    Sean Dunne is on the way back home

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Darryl Weathers
    Favourite Darryl Weathers
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 3:59 PM

    Can’t wait to hear what the Socialists and the Anti Austerity Alliance et al have to say about this.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Norman Hunter
    Favourite Norman Hunter
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:01 PM

    What do you expect them to say?

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Norman Hunter
    Favourite Norman Hunter
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:01 PM

    Helping people get a home when they can’t provide one for themselves is a bad thing ?

    19
    See 9 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Darryl Weathers
    Favourite Darryl Weathers
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:10 PM

    Well for one AAA are going to have to undergo a name change because austerity is now dead with this budget. My larger point is that I can’t wait for leftist groups to try and pick this budget apart they’ll find something to complain about even now their austerity boogeyman is no more.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Norman Hunter
    Favourite Norman Hunter
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:16 PM

    Austerity is not dead, you really need to think before you type.

    20
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bob Moore
    Favourite Bob Moore
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:18 PM

    YAY! Austerity is over. Let’s all party. The Good times are back., Woohoo.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Inntalitarian
    Favourite Inntalitarian
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:21 PM

    Darryl, €5 here and 0.5% there does not even come close to starting to erase the enormous drop in income and living standards people have endured as a result of years of successive cuts.

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bob Moore
    Favourite Bob Moore
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:23 PM

    The pints of Irish Water and extortionate mortgages are on me.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Darryl Weathers
    Favourite Darryl Weathers
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:26 PM

    Looking at that budget and the growth forecasts austerity seems as dead as the dodo to me. This government have done a tremendous job turning it around.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Norman Hunter
    Favourite Norman Hunter
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:33 PM

    Darryl they followed the path laid out by FF, and I’d wait for the final details before clapping them on the back.The sting is normally delivered by a junior minister when no one is listening.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bob Moore
    Favourite Bob Moore
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:43 PM

    What a wonderful rose tinted world you must live in, Darryl.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Darryl Weathers
    Favourite Darryl Weathers
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:59 PM

    Bob I’m dealing with facts growth forecasts are up across the board, unemployment is down across the board, income tax returns higher than they’ve been in years, more new cars being sold year on year an finally with this budget the initial easing of austerity measures. These are facts Bob.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Colette Kearns
    Favourite Colette Kearns
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:33 PM

    Cant help but wonder will they make a b***s of this & we will end up once again with more ghost estates.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SeanieRyan
    Favourite SeanieRyan
    Report
    Oct 14th 2014, 4:41 PM

    We running at a shortage of about 20k houses a year, the building boom was 7 years ago. Long time with hardly any building.

    If we get up to 40k houses a year then we might be having a few too many built.

    Ghost estates are mostly gone in Leinster and Munster at this stage.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pam El A
    Favourite Pam El A
    Report
    Oct 15th 2014, 12:21 AM

    Come to Clare seanie, plenty still left here! (Not all classified as ghost but still huge under occupancy with many homeless people being shipped to Limerick for emergency accommodation)

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds