Galway City has highest proportion of Traveller kids in country

A total of 791 Traveller children were resident in Galway City in 2022, representing a rate of 50.6 per 1,000 children, compared to a national rate of 11.6 per 1,000.

In Galway County, a further 1,087 Traveller children were recorded, which was also nearly double the national average.

The data is contained in the State of the Nation’s Children 2025 report, compiled by the Data and Analytics Unit of the Department of Children, Disability and Equality.

The report brings together findings from the Central Statistics Office, the Health Service Executive, Tusla, and international studies to benchmark child well-being across Ireland.

The figures also reveal significant demographic diversity in Galway City, where more than one in 10 children is a foreign national. Some 1,659 foreign national children were living in the city, representing a rate of 106.2 per 1,000 – the highest concentration outside Dublin and well ahead of the state average of 72.7 per 1,000.

The report highlights severe pressure on local family accommodation, showing that 828 households with children in Galway were identified as being in need of social housing in 2024.

Single-parent families comprised the vast majority of local need, accounting for 496 households or nearly 60% of all families awaiting social housing across the city and county, alongside 266 couples with children, and 66 multi-adult households.

In school attendance, figures collated by Tusla show that chronic absenteeism remains elevated across Galway primary and post-primary classrooms.

In the 2023/24 school year, an average of 21.6% of children per primary school in Galway were absent for 20 days or more, marginally above the state average of 21.4%.

At post-primary level, 27.3% of students per school in Galway missed 20 days or more in 2023/24, exceeding the national average of 21.8% and rising from 23.5% in the previous school year.

Despite attendance challenges, the Leaving Certificate retention rate for secondary school students in Galway stood at 90.7% for the 2017 entry cohort, slightly exceeding the national average of 90.0%.

Healthcare data indicates substantial hospital demand among local children, with 9,408 hospital discharges of children resident in Galway recorded in 2024. This represented an admission rate of 145.4 per 1,000 children, well above the national rate of 117.0 per 1,000.

Some 693 Galway children were discharged after treatment for injuries, poisonings, and other external causes, an increase from 627 in 2023.

A total of 18 children from Galway were admitted to psychiatric hospitals or child and adolescent mental health units in 2024, representing a rate of 27.8 per 100,000 children, compared to a state average of 26.9 per 100,000.

In the community, 395 children aged between 10 and 17 were referred to the Garda Diversion Programme in the Galway Garda Division in 2023. These youths accounted for 668 separate referrals, representing an average of 1.7 referrals per child and a referral rate of 21.8 per 1,000 children.