All-Island Deprivation Index: Towards the development of consistent deprivation measures for the Island of Ireland

This article summarises research undertaken by the authors to develop a prototype comparative cross-border deprivation measure using census data available from the respective censuses of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This new All-Island Deprivation Index, when fully tested, will allow policy-makers, practitioners and academics to better understand the spatial distribution of deprivation from a comparative perspective and provide information for cross-border communities. Based on the methodology developed in this article, it will be possible to generate a new comparative deprivation measure as soon as data from the 2011 Census for both jurisdictions becomes available. The potential linking of this index to the development of EU programmes, in a cross-border context, is an exciting output of this research and will not only benefit the cross-border region of Ireland, but also pave the way for a more evidence-based approach in the allocation of funding to cross-border regions throughout Europe.