Tullamore is one Ireland's most unhealthy towns

Tullamore is one of Ireland's most unhealthy towns, the latest Census report has revealed.

According to the Central Statistics Office, 2.5% of people in Tullamore identified as having “bad/very bad” health, making the town the second most unhealthy in Ireland after Longford (2.9%).

The report also revealed that one in seven Offaly people has a disability.

In 2011, the 10,253 people with at least one disability comprised 13.4% of Offaly’s population. In Census 2016, the 11,154 people with at least one disability made up 14.3% of the county’s population, compared with 13.5% at national level. Of these, 5,461 (49.0%) were male and 5,693 (51.0%) were female.

The report also revealed that there were 117 less carers in Offaly last year, compared to the previous Census in 2011, the latest report on Census 2016 has revealed.

Last year, some 3,357 people stated that they "provided regular unpaid personal help for a friend or family member with a long-term illness, health problem or disability". They comprised 4.3% of the county’s population in April 2016. This was a decrease of 117 people (3.4%) on 2011.

Of the carers in the county, 2,064 were female (61.5%), and 1,293 were male (38.5%). There were 90 carers under 15, compared with 99 in 2011.

Carers provided 119,154 hours of care per week, an average of 41.3 hours per carer per week. The total amount of weekly care hours was a decrease of 15,000 hours (11.2%) on 2011.

Just 57.3% of Offaly's population, or 44,640 people, considered their health to be "very good", while a further 22,743 people (29.2%) said their health was "good".

The 1.8% (1,436 people) who stated that their health was "bad/very bad" was above the percentage at national level, and a 12.5% increase on the 1,277 who stated that their health was "bad/very bad" in 2011.

In Offaly, 5,182 people indicated that they had "a difficulty with pain, breathing, or any other chronic illness or condition", while 1,032 indicated they had blindness or a serious visual impairment and 1,779 had deafness or a serious hearing impairment.