28 Comments

• GeorgeDillon | Jan 23, 2012, 07:23 PM EST

  The Irish should try emigrating to Pakistan or Bangla Desh. They're not welcome in the USA unless they bring extraordinary skills with them. And that's unlikely.

• dipsydolly | Jan 23, 2012, 06:03 PM EST

  ha ha who wouldnt emigrate from limerick, anyway europe is our oyster now plenty of places to live work and play, america is no longer the land of the free spirit, its just another place on the map.

• joycean | Jan 23, 2012, 10:21 AM EST

  The Irish are going to have to find new places to emigrate. The Us has recently passed a bill which favors Mexican and Asian immigrants. Australia is also tightening requirements.

• IrelandNorth | Jan 23, 2012, 09:02 AM EST

  Recently universally imposed Household Service Charge of E100 p/a is 1% for someone on E10,000 p/a (social welfare/low income). It's 0.05% for someone on E200,000 p/a like the Taoiseach and Ministers. The view expressed by the Brussels' man in Ireland is a linguistic equivalent of this disparity 0 i.e. removed from reality.

• GeorgeDillon | Jan 22, 2012, 08:20 PM EST

  Druidman: You're a fool. I suspect you don't know the meaning of the acronym WASP. I can tell you that two of its three elements do not apply in my case. Don't be such a clown.

• Druidman | Jan 22, 2012, 07:41 PM EST

  GEORGE DILLON, GET A LIFE MAN! Clearly you have no idea of what you are talking about. Siobhan does! I think George Dillon is just a troll here with nothing better to do but scream about whatever WASP idea's he has.

• Druidman | Jan 22, 2012, 07:26 PM EST

  APOLOGIES FOR SPELLING ERRORS, JUST SO ANGRY AT THE STUPIDITY OF SOME COMMENTS HERE

• Druidman | Jan 22, 2012, 07:25 PM EST

  George Dillon. Thank you for such an excellent display of complete ignorance! If you think I left Ireland lightly, I would love to explain the resons to you at close quarters i.e EYEBALL TO EYEBALL, GOT THAT MATE?

• Druidman | Jan 22, 2012, 07:21 PM EST

  Shuvonn, Good girl. You have it so right.

• gobdawpaddy | Jan 22, 2012, 07:40 AM EST

  Bit rich for Willie O'Dea to be annoyed. His cowboy mob are the root cause of emigration from Ireland. Have great time for Michael Noonan but this was not his brightest observation.

• upsceach | Jan 22, 2012, 03:16 AM EST

  Well said, It kills parents to see there children leave. They know full well, it's rarely all that come home. Fear bocht.

• stuckhere | Jan 21, 2012, 05:33 PM EST

  He should say sorry to the family,s who,s child has died while working away!our son,s lost a good friend last September while on his way home from Aussie! there should be an statue in Dublin airport to all who died while working away R.I.P. DYLAN xxxx

• upsceach | Jan 20, 2012, 09:53 PM EST

  The same donkeys running the country in the late 80's and early 90's came out with the same nonsence. if most of the young leave there sure to keep control of the country. Neither party have a clue but always blame others.

• joycean | Jan 20, 2012, 04:18 PM EST

  For comparison, of American students who graduated from universities between 2006 and 2010, only 1/2 have found full-time jobs. In 2011, an additional 1.5 million students graduated from university.

• sirpeter | Jan 20, 2012, 04:15 PM EST

  Georgie Boy.Ah!! Come on now Georgina Dillion.Shuvonn has along way to go before she will knock you off the top spot as the stupidest poster on this site.I have to defend Shuvonn here.She didn't say jobs like restaurant and bar work, retail were beneath her.She said highly educated people want jobs that would suit them better and feel they deserve better pay for their years of collage education.Georgina you would have to be a bit of a thicko not to understand that point.

• joycean | Jan 20, 2012, 04:07 PM EST

  Shuvonn, I am sorry if I spelled your name incorrectly. I was talking about asylum cases in the United States: the Irish are not asylum cases here, so there is no reason we should make a special case for them. The United States does have public education for grades K-12. But I do not see how Irish education effects that. Public School teachers are usually American citizens. I taught in our public schools and my daughter is now a public school teacher. Each state sets the requirements for public school teachers, and even someone with a good university degree might not qualify because of the specific course requirements. My daughter had to wait a year before a vacancy appeared in her field; then take the required education courses within 3 years while working full time, then get a masters degree. Parents and students pay for university (higher) education, and many young Americans graduate with high debt, often $100,000 or more. I paid for her undergraduate degree, but my daughter owes close to $20,000 for graduate work. It would be disgraceful if an Irish person came along and took a job from a young American. That young American would do what my daughter did for a year: waitress and what ever work she could get, while trying to pay those loans.

• CaptainCon | Jan 20, 2012, 03:47 PM EST

  Noonan is just managing the media environment with a ridiculous statement calculated to catch attention- the same story and in the same way that Mary Coughlan did and Brian Lenihan Sr before him. Essentially this is about providing the media and the chattering class with a subject other than questions put to the Troika representatives by Sinn Fein and Independent TDs. It is called 'filling the media space' before someone else does it with a story that works against you. It is a cynical ploy by Irish politicians and they are now so unimaginative they are resorting to traditionally offensive statements to swing the cameras and notebooks of the media.

• jacersagain | Jan 20, 2012, 02:46 PM EST

  Noonan has shown utter ignorance of reality with these remarks. For most people, including whole families,leaving Ireland these days, it is not a choice of lfestyle. It's about putting food on the table for the family and paying domestic bills, something not possible on welfare support money these days in Ireland. BTW - shuvonn can't spell her own name either; it's Siobhán, as pronounced in "Quick, quick, shove on your knickers your mother's coming!"

• GeorgeDillon | Jan 20, 2012, 01:59 PM EST

  It looks like Shuvonn thinks jobs like restaurant and bar work, retail etc. are beneath her. They're only for the migrants--what a stinking racist she is. OK, Shuvonn--go to Moldova, you can be the biggest turd on the pile there!

• GeorgeDillon | Jan 20, 2012, 01:57 PM EST

  We have a new candidate for the stupidest poster on this site in the shape of this (woman, I assume?) Shuvonn. She whines about Irish emigration, she wants us Americans to give the Irish special breaks as regards allowing them in to work in our country. Why the hell should we, shuvonn? You yourself said that the EU citizens can work in any other EU country. So why are the Irish not trying to get jobs in Latvia, or Lithuania, or Romania, if you're all one big family over there? Let Poland solve the Irish emigration problem, why should the US solve it?

• shuvonn | Jan 20, 2012, 01:28 PM EST

  First off joycean you cannot spell my name correctly. Half of asylum cases are false, I KNOW people who worked in immigration in Dublin and that IS a FACT!As for the high level of education that was in regards to the ignorant flippant comment of GeorgeDillon stating irish people should not get any favorable treatment. And YES the US is benefiting from highly educated irish immigrants paid for by the irish government and NOT the US education system, the us may NOT pay for the higher education but they DO pay for their base education and if you do not understand how that IS a benefit to not have had to pay ONE DIME towards the high standard of Irish education yet get a higly qualified Irish graduate to the beneifit of the US, you are clearly uninformed and unenlightened. As for Dillon How dare you speak for every immigrant, what you post is merely your own biased opinion based on ignorance of what really is going on in Ireland. NO US kids want to take waitressing jobs, menial jobs after going to school for years either, why should irish kids? And besides you show your complete ignorance of what the membership of the EU means reagrding the irish work force, you can work in ANY EU country now and any country that had a colony that is in the EU is also allowed to have their citizens live and work in ANY EU country. Gee maybe that is WHY a polish woman sold you a cheap pennys shirt, or an african woman drove you on a bus etc.... both of you seem in dire need of an education

• greensod | Jan 20, 2012, 01:26 PM EST

  In the Ireland of today, we are dealing with the spoiled generation. Irish born citizens should have first choice too all available jobs.All employers should be required to hire them as there first choice,above any other nationality.Refusal to accept a job paying a living wage,should result in denial of any benefits,like the dole.All passports should also be denied.When all jobs are filled by Irish citizens,then the job market can be opened up to people from other countries.Problem solved.Ireland can only be rebuilt by the Irish and that will not happen by running away from the problems of the country.

• GeorgeDillon | Jan 20, 2012, 12:41 PM EST

  Shuvonn ---What you write is nonsense. First, the Irish ARE abandoning Ireland very lightly. Contrast their flight not fight policy with the fighting spirit of the Greek people. Ireland's spineless reaction has been disgraceful. Second, there are countless jobs in Ireland being done by foreigners (and 2011Hope, this is where your argument is off the rails). Why did it need to be a Polish woman who sold me that shirt in Penneys a week or two back. And why was it an African who drove the bus from Dubin to galway? And why was the (very rude and incompetent) check-in clerk for Continental Airways at Dublin Airport some kind of filipino or Thai? Until I get some good answers to these questions I'll continue thinking that the whining about emigration is just one more Irish farce.

• joycean | Jan 20, 2012, 10:37 AM EST

  shuvann, There are two issues: why are they leaving and where should they go. They aren't seeking asylum; any other reason could be considered a choice. The US also has many young people with very high levels of education who were born here and are currently unemployed or underemployed. American higher education is not provided by the government, so there is no government advantage to hiring foreign workers. This country has other immigration issues which are more pressing.

• shuvonn | Jan 20, 2012, 10:28 AM EST

  2011hope, a lot of that ended with the iclandic eruption of the volcano, so many less ended up collecting that week, it brought up red flags to be investigated. Ain't weather great?

• shuvonn | Jan 20, 2012, 09:47 AM EST

  How glibly you make the comment that irish abandon their country so lightly when the irish government was only TOO happy to have many off the unemployment line by allowing the not so civil servants to take carreer breaks for the unemployed to fill temporarily. irish people are more likely to assimiliate into American society, they speak the language and are highly educated than many other immigrants, an education paid for by the irish government only to benefit the US. SO spare me your glib comments as you clearly have NO idea of what its like standing in the arrivals hall of Dublin airport or more sadly the departures hall of Dublin airport and you would see the pain that having to move away from loved ones and the fear of living illegally does to some. There is nothing in this that should or could be taken lightly IF you had any experience of this nor is it a *lifestyle choice*

• 2011Hope | Jan 20, 2012, 09:47 AM EST

  The 1,000 foreign settlers GeorgeDillon refers to immigrating to Ireland each week are most likely just making a round trip to collect their social welfare payments from the Irish Government. What Michael Noonan said about emigration makes him sound very stupid and completely out of touch with reality. Even the dogs on the street know that the vast majority of Irish people are leaving Ireland because of the non-existence of jobs and the extremely bleak prospects that lie ahead for Ireland.

• GeorgeDillon | Jan 20, 2012, 09:19 AM EST

  What is missing in the chorus of cant on emigration from Ireland is consideration of the fact that every month thousands of foreign settlers IMMigrate to Ireland. Statistics show that more than a thousand per week (some 70k per year) foreign settlers stream thru the Arrivals section of Dublin Airport even while young Irish men and women are heading towards Departures. Anyone who goes to Dublin sees the effects of this--large areas, downtown Dublin for example, exhibit a foreign majority of maybe four to every one Irish person. As I see it, there are two hypotheses to explain this fact. First, the Irish don't want the jobs that the foreign migrants accept--security guard, retail store clerk, hotel receptionist, long-distance bus and truck driver, wait staff and bar staff etc. etc. The other hypothesis is that Irish workers DO want to do these jobs (after all they were doing them up till 8 or 10 years ago) but Irish bosses and capitalists won't hire them--the bosses prefer cheap docile foreign labor. Which hypothesis is correct? Both are chilling commentaries on the reality of modern Ireland. Either way, Irish Americans should on no account lobby for favorable treatment for Irish people who abandon their country so lightly.