Newry and Mourne is made up of more children than any other district in the north. As well as having the youngest age profile of all the Local Government Districts (LGDs)with 24 per cent of the population being children the area also has one of the lowest proportions of people aged 65 and over – 12 per cent. In real terms this means that Newry and Mourne’s 12,300 senior citizens are outnumbered almost two to one by its 23,500 children – 192 children per hundred people aged 65 and over. News that the area’s population is mostly made up of children will lend weight to the call by child-focused charity Sticky Fingers, for greater funding and investment in children’s services across the district as revealed by the Democrat earlier this month. It also highlights the need for a play area in Newry a campaign for which has been gathering particular impetus since the opening of the child-centred facility at Slieve Gullion. In the past decade the district has also undergone an 11 per cent growth in the number of working-age adults – those aged between 16-39 living in it the fourth highest growth rate in the north. Also on the increase in Newry and Mourne is the number of two-people household. The district has experienced the highest increase, 37 per cent of all LGDs inn the north since 2001. The figures which were recorded during the 2011 Census have recently been released by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and offer and estimated picture of the area’s usually resident population broken down by age and gender along with information regarding households. The information will be used in policy formation and service planning for specific groups of people with the aim of making effective use of resources by distributing them to where they are need most.
Newry Democrat
25th September 2012
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