Ireland has most people per local authority in EU

More people are represented by a single local authority in Ireland than in any other EU member state, with county and city councils responsible for 100,000 more constituents on average than the next highest state.

Ireland’s local authorities are responsible for an average of 161,907 inhabitants each.

The data was compiled as part of the European Local Government Report 2025, released by the Centre for Public Administration Research in March 2026.

The next highest number of inhabitants per local authority is Denmark, where 98 authorities are responsible for an average of 59,591 people.

While Ireland sits at the top of the list of inhabitants per authority, it sits bottom of the rankings of local authorities overall, with just 31.

Next on the list is Latvia, which has 43, and Lithuania, which has 60.

By contrast, Malta, an island nation in the Mediterranean with a total land area of just 316km2 – just 0.37% of the size of Ireland – has over double the number of local authorities, with 68 municipalities representing an average of 7,590 inhabitants each.

On the other end of the scale is France, whose 34,955 regions, départements, and communes represent just 1,928 inhabitants each, and Germany, where an average of 7,715 inhabitants are represented by each of its 10,789 municipalities.

Absent from the Irish system when compared to the rest of Europe is a system of regional municipalities between central and local government with decision-making power over public service provision.

Regional bodies

While different models have been adopted across the bloc, common across the continent are regional bodies with the ability to raise revenue and provide services such as health and education at a regional level.

In a highly fragmented system like in France this is a necessity, as the extremely localised nature of local government makes cooperation key, and economies of scale in delivery of service impossible without some sort of larger coordinating body.

While Ireland does have three regional assemblies – the Northern and Western, Southern, and Eastern and Midlands assembles – the extent of their responsibilities does not go beyond encouraging cooperation between county and city councils in their region and monitoring the delivery of European Structural and Investment Funds.

By contrast, the autonomous communities of Spain, or the départements and regions of France, all have significant autonomy in the delivery of public services such as health and education, and local infrastructure across their jurisdictions.

Local government spending

Similar contrasts between devolution in Ireland and the rest of Europe can be seen in where spending in this country happens.

In 2024, Ireland’s local government spending was only 2.3% of the country’s GDP, the third lowest in Europe ahead of only Malta and Cyprus, indicating that the majority of spending in the country was happening centrally, rather than being entrusted to local authorities, who command only a small share of national economic resources.

On the other side of the coin, the share of revenue which local governments contributed to the overall exchequer that same year was only 7%, again the third lowest in the bloc ahead of just Cyprus and Malta.

The share of revenue generated by local government provides a “proxy for fiscal autonomy” according to the report’s authors.

“Where local revenues represent a large proportion of public revenues, municipalities typically have more discretion and stronger incentives to link local priorities to local financing. Where the share is low, local policy space is often constrained by dependence on national decisions and grant systems,” they said.

In Ireland’s case, they said: “This suggests a highly centralised approach to public finance, where key revenue streams remain firmly under national control. In practice, this often means that local authorities depend heavily on transfers and have little room to adapt spending to local needs, even when they are responsible for delivering services.”

Issues highlighted

These issues were highlighted by the Local Democracy Taskforce, established by the local government last year. Their key recommendations included the introduction of municipal councils with enhanced decision making and financial decision-making power, as well as forums for local and national representatives to meet formally and discuss policy and funding decisions.

However, Cllr Dan Boyle, who spoke to the Cork Independent on the subject last month, said that unless the structural imbalances which currently exist in the Irish local government system are address, then dominance of central over local government will continue.

That is not to say that a simple reform of the size or number of local authorities will be an immediate fix to the issues identified with Ireland’s system of local government, as the report ultimately concludes.

“Larger municipalities can strengthen administrative professionalism, economies of scale, and service delivery capacity. However, the limited link between size and spending weight indicates that financial outcomes depend more on how tasks and funding are organised in the multi-level system,” they said, a multi-level system which is absent in Ireland.

This article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.