Athy is designated a secondary growth area under the Greater Dublin Development Plan. The town is considered a crucial element of the 2002 -2020 National Spatial Strategy, linking the existing gateway of Dublin to its ‘hub' Kilkenny which is situated 25 miles away.

Additionally, it was announced with the selection of the preferred route options for the proposed M9/M10 motorway linking the two gateways of Dublin and Waterford, that Athy will benefit from a quality corridor connecting the town to this significant infrastructural project. This will increase the accessibility of Athy to commuters who are based in Dublin and elsewhere.

The town is also served by the main rail line linking Dublin and Waterford and also by a provincial bus service which provides excellent transport to and from Dublin every day. For more details on train and bus timetables click here to be redirected to the transport section of the website. All of the above provides Athy with excellent modes of transport to main centres of population and national ports and airports.

In terms of telecommunications infrastructure, Athy has benefited from a focus on its Information Communication Technology. The Portlaoise - Carlow fibre ring passes through Athy, which is 2.5 Gbit Synchronous Digital Hierarchy standard and forms part of the resilient national fibre ring network. Athy also has a fully digital exchange, which meets European ISDN standards and the signal strength for all mobile networks is more than adequate throughout the town which is also suitable for Wireless Local Loop technology.

Athy also benefits from Broadband. Using normal dial up connections the speed at which information is transferred between computers is approximately 45 Kbps (kilobits per second). With a broadband connection this speed is greatly enhanced, speeds of up to 10 Mbps can be achieved. SME's which have connected to a broadband network will benefit form faster connections, faster, high capacity e-mail services, conduct web site management, tele-conferencing, and for small-scale e-commerce applications. There are 2 main Broadband providers in the area - Eircom and Esat. Check out their website for further information.