Maybe it’s the sea air, but staff at Galway City Council are the healthiest of any local authority workers in the country – and that’s official.

The latest National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) scrutiny report of Galway City Council, shows that the sick rate among staff has more than halved in a decade.

In 2014, the certified sick leave rate for staff at City Hall was 4.47%. But in 2022, the City Council’s medically certified sick leave rate had fallen to 1.8%.

According to NOAC, this was “the lowest among all local authorities”. The national average was 3.01%.

Galway City Council’s self-certified sick leave was 0.14% – again well below the national average of 0.20%.

NOAC noted that Galway City Council’s sick leave figures, “have improved strongly over the years”, and the workforce is half as sick as average local authority workers across the country.
This is a shortened preview version of this column. For more Bradley Bytes, see the January 26 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.