With the household charge the hot topic this week and tomorrow (Saturday March 31 ) marking the closing date for payment, just-released figures from the 2011 Census expose a number of reasons why people might call for non-payment of the charge.
The €100 charge will purportedly be used to fund local authorities and services; however, according to the Census, people will then be paying for services they do not receive — such as sewerage and water supply.
Of the 48,070 private households in the county, only 19,906 of those households are connected to a public sewerage scheme, while 24,640 households use a septic tank. Those with a septic tank are also liable to a registration charge which is €5 at the moment, but will jump up to €50 come April 1 when the discount announced earlier in the year runs out.
When the figures are broken down on an urban versus rural divide, it shows that 24,150 households in rural areas use a septic tank and only 6,589 rural households are connected to a public sewerage scheme. Also according to the figures 101 households in the county have no sewerage system in place at all and 1,868 households have other non-septic tank treatment systems in place.
When it comes to water supply, 25,377 households in the county are connected to the public mains, while 11,902 are on local authority group schemes and 6,196 households are on private group schemes.
The divide between urban and rural on public mains is almost 50/50 with 13,317 households in urban areas connected to the mains and 12,060 in rural areas connected to the mains. When the figures for group schemes, both local authority and private are taken into account, a major divide occurs. In urban areas only 646 households are connected to a group scheme, 45 of those to private schemes. In rural areas a total of 17,452 households rely on group water schemes for their water supply. Of that number 11,301 get their water from a local authority group water scheme, while the remaining 6,151 have to get their water supply from a private group scheme. Only 67 households in the county have no piped water supply at all, with four of them in urban areas and 63 in rural parts of the county.
More than five thousand divorced or separated in the county
According to the marital statistics released, over 5,000 people in Mayo are either divorced or separated. A total of 2,978 people are separated and 2,382 were divorced in Mayo last April when the census was taken. Of those divorced 1,706 were male and 1,306 were female. There are 51,684 people who are married in Mayo and 66,623 single people in the county – while 1,252 people have remarried following a divorce and 306 since becoming a widow or a widower.
Census shows Mayo population increase of more than five per cent
The census figures published by the Central Statistics Office yesterday confirm a jump of 5.5 per cent in the population of county Mayo, up from 123,839 in 2006 to 130,638 in 2011. The breakdown by sex is 65,420 men and 65,218 women. The population increase has seen a rise in Dáil representation of 26,128 per TD in the county up from 24,768 in 2006. A total of 128,492 people live in the 48,070 private households in Mayo which puts an average of 2.7 people per private household in the county. The Traveller population of the county stands at 1,385 with 1,273 of them living in a private household, with 682 males and 703 females counted.
The breakdown of religious beliefs in the county, according to 2011 Census figures released yesterday, show Roman Catholicism still dominant in Mayo, with 117,721 people claiming it as their faith. This represents an increase of 3,506 people on the previous census in 2006. The next largest category saw 4,994 respondents declaring ‘no religious beliefs’ – a 52.9 per cent increase from 2006. The Church of Ireland population also saw an increase of 217 people, up to 2,693, while the Presbyterian population stands at 331. The number of Methodists fell by 40.2 per cent to 122, while those of the Jewish faith in the county remained unchanged at 27 from five years previously. Other religions, including those of Muslim faith, saw a 52.9 per cent increase up to 3,513 people.
