Over 7,200 carers in Donegal, 156 under 15 – Census 2016

Over 7,200 people identified as carers in Donegal in Census 2016, while almost 23,000 people in the county said they had at least one disability.
While over 86% of people in the county reported their health as very good or good in 2016, 2,874 people, representing 1.8% of the population, stated their health was “bad” or “very bad”.
22,955 people, or 14.4% of Donegal’s population reported having at least one disability in April of last year, compared with 13.5% at national level.

In Donegal, 10,366 people indicated that they had “a difficulty with pain, breathing or any other chronic illness or condition”. 2,068 indicated they had blindness or a serious visual impairment, and 4,357 had deafness or a serious hearing impairment.
The census also sought to identify carers, with 7,211 people stating that they “provided regular unpaid personal help for a friend or family member with a long-term illness, health problem or disability”
This was down 3% on 2011.
Of the carers in the county, 62%, 4,440 were female, while 62%, 2,771, were male. There were
156 carers under 15, compared with 171 in 2011.
Carers provided 267,953 hours of care per week, an average of 42.6 hours per carer per week.