Waterford ranked as best place to live in Ireland
The sun rises on Waterford City - Waterford has been ranked the best place to live in Ireland.
County Waterford tops the overall ranking as the best place to live in Ireland.
According to the Ireland Liveability Index (ILI), published last week, Waterford is one of the sunniest counties in the country, has reasonably priced housing, is in the top 10 of the most scenic counties, and its inhabitants have ideal access to city facilities.
The ILI ascribed scores to each of the 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland for the parameters that will influence a person's decision on the location of their ideal home.
The parameters included house prices, sunshine, proximity to a city and natural amenity or scenery.
Waterford's consistent high scores across every category resulted in an overall liveability score of 74.
Coming in second was Wexford with a score of 68, followed by Donegal with a score of 67.
The median house price in Waterford is €222,000, resulting in a 'liveability' score of 73, while the Déíse achieved a score of 57 in terms of access to natural amenities.
With regard to proximity to a city, the researchers attempted to capture the desire of people to access the facilities that cities have to offer.
"Not everyone wants to live in a city but the majority of people want to have easy access to one," they noted in the Index.
According to the index, the average person in Waterford lives 16km from the city, giving the county an index rating of 87.
For comparison, the index noted that the average person in County Dublin lives 2km from Dublin City Centre, and as a result County Dublin received a top liveability score of 100. Dublin, however, placed extremely low when it came to house prices.
In terms of sunshine Wexford is the sunniest county in the country with an average of 1,411 hours of sunshine per year and as a result within that parameter it received a top ranking of 100.
The top five highest ranked counties in this category were all in the South East coastal region, and Waterford received a ranking of 79 with its average hours of sunshine per year coming in at 1,356.
Click on the infographic below to see how Waterford compares to the other counties in the country
