Compare two areas

Build a side-by-side, sourced comparison of two places in Ireland. Use irish-area-report instead for a single place, and where-to-live-shortlist when the user wants to rank three or more places.

Related projects: IrelandInsights (IrelandInsights), Civgraph (Scott Moore), Ireland Property Price Atlas (Ireland Property Price Atlas). Not affiliated; see ../_shared/inspirations.md.

Calling the tools

Steps name each operation as source/operation (e.g. pobal/pobal_deprivation_search), using the typed tool name as the operation. On the default surface, run it with ireland_call, for example:

{ "source": "pobal", "operation": "pobal_deprivation_search", "args": { "query": "Ballymun" } }

If an argument shape is unclear, call ireland_describe with { "source", "operation" } first; it returns the schema and an example. search, fetch, nearby and ireland_resolve_place are top-level tools. If the server was added with ?toolsets=<ids> or ?toolsets=all, the typed tool can be called directly with the same args.

Steps

1. Pin both places to the same level. Compare like with like: county with county, council with council, LEA with LEA, electoral division (ED) with ED. Call ireland_resolve_place with { "place": "Tallaght" } for each place. It returns place.level and every code: county, local authority, LEA, Dáil constituency, NUTS3 and the ED code (six digits, e.g. "268018"). For an area, add "list": "ed" to get all of its EDs. A town name falls back to its gazetteer point, which is flagged approximate. If the levels differ, tell the user and pick the closest common level.
2. Population. Call cso/cso_area_profile with { "area": "<county or town>", "years": ["2016", "2022"] }. Counties give change between censuses; towns give Census 2022 only.
3. Deprivation. Call pobal/pobal_deprivation_search with { "query": "<ED code>" } (the code from step 1 matches Pobal's ed_id) for each ED from step 1. A name can match several EDs (Ballymun A–F); list each or give a population-weighted average, and say which.
4. Sale prices. Call ppr/ppr_price_stats for each place over the same 12 months, e.g. { "county": "Dublin", "address": "tallaght", "from": "<12 months ago>" } or an Eircode routing key ("eircode": "D24"). Report median, count and quartiles.
5. Rents (optional). Call cso/cso_get_table_metadata with { "table_code": "RIQ02" } to find the Location codes, then cso/cso_get_data with { "table_code": "RIQ02", "filters": { "C03004V03625": ["<loc>"], "C02970V03592": ["-"], "C02969V03591": ["-"], "TLIST(Q1)": ["<latest quarter>"] } }. RTB locations are counties, towns and Dublin postal districts (e.g. "Dublin 24"); say if a place has no RTB row.
6. Compute differences only from returned values (absolute and %), and show the arithmetic.

Output format

Illustrative layout; the values are examples, not data.

## Tallaght vs Ballymun
| Measure | Tallaght | Ballymun | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electoral divisions | Tallaght-Jobstown, ... | Ballymun A–F | 2022 boundaries | CSO / Tailte Éireann |
| Pobal relative index | -8.1 (Disadvantaged) | -21.6 to -9.3 | 2022 | Pobal HP Index |
| Median sale price | €365,000 (n=410) | €310,000 (n=96) | Oct 2025–Sep 2026 | PPR, data as of DATE |
| RTB average rent | €1,950 | €1,880 | 2025Q4 | RTB via CSO RIQ02 |
Sources
- ...

Rules

• Follow ../_shared/citations.md: every number has its period and source.
• Use the same period and level for both places; flag any mismatch in the table.
• No "better" or "worse" verdicts and no advice on where to live. Describe differences only.
• Pobal scores are relative to the national mean (0); negative means more disadvantaged than average.
• Small PPR counts (under 20 sales) are unstable; say so next to the median.