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110 a day -- latest CSO stats show extent of Ireland's shocking emigration problem
Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 11:37 AM
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And it's recent graduates who are anecdotally, and statistically, taking the brunt of it: statistics show that the majority of those seeking out are aged between 25 and 44, while the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) this afternoon issued a strongly worded press release stating that recent college graduates were increasingly left with no choice but to seek to earn a living in sunnier shores.
USI President Gary Redmond this afternoon said that the issue seemed, remarkably, to be off the government's radar, and said that it was almost too late to rectify the situation.
"This continued inaction at tackling the soaring unemployment and emigration is hampering any hope of realising the Government’s ambitions of creating a Smart Economy in Ireland. Masses of highly skilled graduates are leaving for distant shores, taking with them the future prosperity of this island," the student leader said today.
According to Irish news aggregation website, TheJournal.ie, the alarming figure represents a significant increase on last year, when 27,700 Irish people moved abroad, and on 2009, when it is thought that 18,400 Irish citizens departed to live outside the State.
A poll on the website -- one of Ireland's fastest growing news sources -- showed that 36% of respondents (at the time of writing) said that they 'probably would' emigrate, for lack of economic opportunity at home.
So many sectors of the Irish economy are beset by difficulty, that graduates report that many fear they'll be simply unable to eke out a living if things stay the way they are.
Unemployment, at over 14% remains high, and further austerity measures, to meet Ireland's bailout terms, are on the short-term horizon, so an improvement in the situation looks improbable at best.
In total, the rise charted by the latest CSO figures represents a 17% increase on previous years, although not all of that is accounted for by Irish nationals -- many of the emigrants were migrant Eastern European workers who immigrated to Ireland during the boom years, and have since decided to return home once the economic climate took on a less than rosy tint. Overall in fact, foreign emigrants returning home is down for the second year in a row, indicating that the majority of the increase is from Irish-born citizens.
The statistics will make troubling reading for the government, who seem to have done a reasonably good job at avoiding the issue altogether, as well as for students, who are concerned that things are worse than many are making out.
And sadly unless there's a dramatic turnaround, it seems as if these figures are only set to continue.
See more: student emigration, Emigration
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kinvara7 | Sep 16, 2011, 05:17 AM EDT
In 2010 27,700 Irish people emigrated and in 2009 18,400 Irish emigrated. Do you remember Danny when you said: ‘70,000 of our youngest and brightest left for foreign shores last year’? Some of us were at pains to point out that that was incorrect and that less than half of that figure, were Irish. To be fair to you Danny, you were not the only one to presume that everyone who left Ireland was Irish. Furthermore Danny you seem to have omitted from your article the figures detailing the Irish who have returned to Ireland in the last year. Over the last 12 months 21,000 Irish people have returned home.
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kinvara7 | Sep 16, 2011, 04:38 AM EDT
Danny what about the 57 Irish people who return home every day?
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kerryman201 | Sep 15, 2011, 06:03 PM EDT
What a tragedy. A lost generation.
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kerryman201 | Sep 15, 2011, 06:02 PM EDT
What a tragedy. A lost generation.
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GeorgeDillon | Sep 15, 2011, 02:34 PM EDT
Does the goof who wrote the above even know what the term "naturalized Irish citizens" means? Come on O'Carroll, have some respect for yourself--get things right.
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