A brain drain for Ireland as economy buckles

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MOLLY MULDOON,

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Social welfare line in Dublin City

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I tried in vain for almost six months in an impossible job market to find secure employment. I was adamant I would do almost anything.

When I asked too many questions in the interview for the direct marketing position they never called back. I was told by employers I was too inexperienced, I was too young, I was overqualified.

When one prospective employer asked for my salary range, she scoffed at me down the phone insisting someone as young as me couldn’t expect to be earning anywhere above €23,000.

For the first time in my life I felt like my work ethic, my morals and my determination were null and void. Deflated, disheartened and not content with erratic freelance shifts, I like so many other disillusioned graduates made a decision.
I went online and applied for a U.S. visa.  It was time to cut my losses and leave.

In Ireland today over 400,000 people are signing on the live register for unemployment benefits. That in itself is an incentive to stay away. One common sentiment echoed among my family and friends is at home is, “Stay where you are.”

Mainly due to Ireland’s economic disarray, I have enough college friends around the globe to keep me couch surfing for a year. Eoin in Winnipeg; Sinead in Vancouver; Alan in Hong Kong; Victoria in Melbourne; Yvonne in South Korea; Sophia in Barcelona; Antoinette in Frankfurt; David in London.

Modern day technology means we are only a mouse click away. All conscious of Ireland’s state of affairs, we often discuss our musings about prospects back home.

Eoin had been working with a host of reputable radio stations in Dublin before he applied for the Canadian year-long visa. He acknowledges that like so many other graduates, he was very focused on career goals.

“I had been working extensively in the media industry since I was 19 and had been taken up with the job ladder for the next four years. I devoted my life to working towards a pretty unattainable place for someone my age,” he said.

“In the process, I became very cynical about everything and in my early twenties found I'd become someone who I didn't enjoy being. I wanted to do something about that and so I decided to head to Vancouver.”

Like your average Irish person, he has very plain views about the cause of Ireland’s economic downfall.

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