82pc of Irish households now have access to the internet

18 Dec 2014

One-fifth of Irish households do not have access to the internet in 2014, new Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures suggest. While 42pc of those without internet said they didn’t need it, 39pc cited lack of skills.

The figures from the CSO provide an interesting snapshot of the digital lifestyles of the Irish people in 2014.

Even in this age of streaming, social media and entertainment on-demand, it appears email is still the most popular activity carried out on the internet by individuals (85pc).

This is followed by social networking (63pc) and internet banking (60pc).

The most popular goods and services being purchased by Irish consumers were associated with travel and entertainment.

Some 29pc of Irish people purchased holiday accommodation followed by other travel arrangements (31pc) and tickets for events (30pc).

At home in the cloud

More than one-third of Irish internet users are au fait with the cloud – 35pc of users used storage space on the internet to store documents such as pictures, music, video and other files.

Portable computers, including tablets and netbooks, were the most popular devices used by Irish people to access the internet (88pc) followed by mobile phones (62pc).

Desktops are still used by 23pc of Irish people to go online followed by games consoles (10pc) and smart TVs (8pc).

Digital Ireland image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com