Economically, Ireland depends heavily upon its shipping sector. However, structural changes arising from the globalisation of shipping fleets and the recent global recession has resulted in a decline in Europe’s shipping sector. Acknowledging the need for direct measures to halt this decline...

This study seeks to examine the economic impact of companies that offer water-based activities (WBA) to their localities in Ireland. Marine based water activities generated €74.3 million in turnover to the Irish economy in 2007 of which €40 million was Gross Value Added. The sector employed...

The economic impact of the marine economy is poorly understood at both a national and regional level in Ireland. A recent paper by estimated the economic value of the marine sector for Ireland at the national level. This paper presents a follow up analysis of the Irish marine sector at the...

Coastal locations are traditional hotspots for tourism and leisure activity. The economic growth experienced in Ireland since the mid 1990s, coupled with an increased focus on health, leisure and improved lifestyle has contributed to an increase in participation in marine water-based activities...

Much economic policy focuses on increasing or maintaining employment at a national level. However, within the EU, the move to a single market and the increased rate of globalisation has led to a recognition that not all regions would benefit from trade liberalisation. This has led to an...

This paper analyses the effect accessibility has on General Practitioner (GP) utilisation rates at the sub-national level for Ireland. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to estimate whether there is an urban/rural differential in GP utilisation rates. We do this by simulating micro-level...

The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that world-wide, depression will be the second largest source of burden of disease by 2020. It is currently estimated that approximately 300,000 Irish people experience depression. To date no research has been carried out on the small area incidence...

The main aim of this paper is to provide a spatial modelling framework for labour force participation and income estimation. The development of a household income distribution for Ireland had previously been hampered by the lack of disaggregated data on individual earnings. Spatial...

As with ill health in general, the conventional wisdom is that mental illnesses are more prevalent in urban settings. This assumption has meant that there has been a paucity of literature documenting the mental health needs of rural and remote communities. For example, the present literature on...

The aim of this paper is to establish whether there are spatial variations in acute hospital utilisation in Ireland and if so, what are the micro-level factors influencing this variation? Firstly, an alignment process is used to calibrate the acute in-patient attendance and nights spent in...