Irish  emigration  skyrockets  due  to  economic  crisis    

 Eric  Patrigde  from  the  Communications  Workers’  Union  is  protesting  against  further  budget  cuts  from  the  government.  He  believes,  austerity  will  force  more  Irish  to  leave  their  homeland.  Photo:  Michael  Hjøllund  

Irish  Emigration  is  at  it’s  highest  in  25  years.  Experts  and  emigration  consultants  point  to  unemployment  and  bad  economic  prospects  as  the  primary  cause.      By  Michael  Hjøllund,  17-­‐12-­‐2012    It’s  almost  midnight  at  Isaacs  Hostel,  situated  on  the  north  side  of  the  river  Liffey,  in  Dublin,  Ireland.  Dan  McGrath  has  just  begun  another  night  shift  in  the  reception.  However,  “night-­‐time  hostel  receptionist”  has  not  always  been  his  job  title.  Dan  is  a  trained  plasterer.  During  the  big  boom  in  the  Irish  building  sector  in  the  beginning  of  the  millennium  he  earned  full  profit  from  the  prospering  industry.      ”It  was  similar  to  signing  a  sports  contract.  When  the  apprenticeship  was  done,  the  money  was  insane.  Life  was  good,”  Dan  says.      

But  then  the  crisis  came.  Starting  2008,  Ireland  experienced  an  economic  meltdown,  worse  than  what  hit  most  other  countries  in  the  EU.      ”One  day  we  were  told  that  it  was  all  gone.  At  first  we  sat  down  and  had  a  laugh  about  it,  but  slowly  over  that  week  we  started  to  realize  that  there  was  no  more  work,  no  more  contracts.  Everything  started  to  slow  down,”  Dan  explains.    Now  he  is  sitting  behind  the  desk  in  a  hostel,  but  not  for  long.  Dan  plans  to  leave  Ireland  in  March  to  try  his  luck  abroad.  Right  now  there  are  no  prospects  for  him  in  his  home  country.    ”I  will  be  hitting  30  next  year.  I  want  a  reasonable  mortgage,  have  some  money  in  the  bank  and  start  a  family.  In  my  situation  I  would  risk  bringing  up  kids  in  semi-­‐poverty  here  in  Ireland,”  he  says.      A  growing  tendency    Dan  is  far  from  being  the  only  Irishman  who  plans  to  leave.  According  to  preliminary  statistics  from  the  Central  Statistic  Office  (CSO)  in  Ireland,  87.100  people  left  the  emerald  island  from  April  2011,  to  April  2012.  The  latest  figures  makes  2012  the  year  of  the  highest  emigration  rates  in  25  years  in  Ireland.      Taking  the  number  of  people  moving  to  Ireland  into  account,  the  trend  is  the  same.  In  the  latest  figures  the  net  emigration,  from  Ireland  was  34.400  people.      Economic  crisis  has  major  impact  Four  years  into  the  crisis,  Ireland  is  holding  a  depressing  position  in  the  top  five  of  EU  countries  with  the  highest  unemployment  rates.  Since  late  2009,  the  Irish  figures  for  overall  unemployment  has  at  no  point  been  below  13  %,  and  

according  to  the  global  accounting  firm  Ernst  &  Young,  high  unemployment  rates  will  haunt  Ireland  at  least  until  2015,  where  the  island  might  see  the  beginning  of  a  modest  turnaround.      

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Emigration  i  Irland  (2000-­‐2012)  

Today,  more  than  230  people  leave  Ireland  every  day  -­‐  Source:  CSO,  Ireland  

According  to  Piaras  Mac  Èinrí,  lecturer  in  Migration  Studies  at  University  College  Cork,  the  significant  rise  in  the  emigration  numbers  that  Ireland  has  seen  the  past  years  primarily  is  due  to  bad  economic  prospects.    “I  think  a  lot  of  people,  even  if  they  are  not  unemployed  at  the  moment,  are  looking  at  the  signs  and  saying  that  they  don't  see  any  signs  of  early  improvement.  Therefore  they  decide  to  move  out,”  he  says.    Ph.D.  in  Sociology,  Elaine  Moriaty  from  Trinity  College  backs  up  her  colleague’s  explanation  for  the  recent  rise  in  emigration.    “It’s  becoming  more  and  more  pressurised  especially  for  families  and  women  to  live  in  this  country.  So  for  some  they  will  make  a  choice  to  leave.  For  others,  they  will  feel  they  are  being  forced  to  leave,”  she  says.      Èinrí  stresses  that  the  field  of  emigration  is  suffering  from  a  lack  of  more  detailed  data  on  what  kind  of  people  are  leaving  and  why.  In  2013  he  will  begin  a  study  to  shed  more  light  on  contemporary  emigration.    There  are  no  jobs  Both  experts  argue,  that  emigration  is  a  complicated  issue,  where  many  factors  have  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  However,  when  you  ask  the  people  who  facilitate  and  work  with  emigration  every  day,  why  so  many  Irish  people  are  emigrating,  the  answer  seems  quite  clear.    ”The  main  reason  that  I  would  hear  from  day-­‐to-­‐day  is  that  they  [emigrants]  are  leaving  to  find  work.  They  are  going  because  they  have  to,  because  there  is  no  jobs  here,  but  there  are  bills  to  pay,”  says  Edwina  Shanahan,  marketing  director  at  Visa  First,  a  company  that  helps  Irish  emigrants  with  their  visa  applications.      Another  agency  that  has  a  finger  on  the  pulse  of  emigration  in  Ireland  is  Diamond  Global  International.  They  help  Canadian  companies  to  recruit  labour  from  around  the  world.  According  to  managing  director,  Colin  Harris,  the  Irish  labour  force  is  skilled  and  more  than  willing  to  go  abroad  to  find  a  job.  Often,  they  don’t  even  have  a  choice.    ”The  way  things  are  here  in  Ireland,  a  large  percentage  of  people  just  don't  have  other  opinions.  They  are  trying  to  pick  their  best  option  out  of  having  to  do  something.  There  is  no  work  for  them  here.  People  can’t  afford  to  live  here  with  their  families,”  he  says.    Emigration  drains  the  society  Out  of  the  87.100  Irish  who  emigrated  from  April  2011  to  April  2012,  forty  per  cent  were  aged  15-­‐24.  According  to  the  Union  of  Students  in  Ireland  (USI),  the  main  reason  young  people  

leave  is  the  lack  of  jobs.  The  union  warns  that  growing  numbers  of  young  people  emigrating  poses  a  threat  to  the  Irish  economy.      “Right  now  we  see  Google  and  Facebook  setting  up  their  European  headquarters  in  Dublin,  and  that  is  partly  because  the  graduates  in  Ireland  are  so  highly  skilled.  We  might  see  these  jobs  open  with  nobody  to  fill  them.”  says  Cat  O’Driscoll,  Vice  President  for  Academic  Affairs  and  Quality  Assurance  of  the  USI.      To  her,  emigration  is  an  issue  for  both  the  national  economy  and  the  Irish  citizens.      “There  is  less  and  less  people  here  and  they  spend  less  money.  This  means  that  the  local  economy  takes  a  huge  hit.    The  people  leaving  should  be  earning  and  spending  money  in  the  local  business.  Emigration  is  affecting  everybody,”  Cat  O’Driscoll  says.    A  painful  necessity  Other  interest  groups  such  as  Youth  Work  Ireland,  an  organization  working  with  young  people  across  the  country,  share  the  USI’s  negative  view  on  emigration.  However,  growing  emigration  can  also  be  viewed  as  a  painful  but  natural  response,  to  a  national  economy  out  of  order.      According  to  chief  economist  Savvas  Savouri  from  the  London  based  Toscafund  hedge  fund,  Ireland  will  see  more  emigration  in  the  comings  years.  With  people  leaving  Savouri  predicts  that  the  real  estate  market  will  drop  further  and  force  even  more  people  to  leave  the  emerald  island.      ”In  the  first  instance  the  emigration  will  do  enormous  damage  to  the  Irish  Economy,  but  it  is  a  way  to  rebalance  the  situation,  simply  by  having  fewer  people  living  in  Ireland,”  he  says.    According  to  Savouri  Ireland  and  other  EU  countries  like  Portugal  will  have  to  accept  a  period  of  massive  emigration,  falling  property-­‐market  prices  and  economic  hardships,  in  order  to  recover.  The  worst  thing  for  the  governments  to  do,  is  to  try  to  avoid  the  inevitable:  

”There  is  nothing  that  can  be  done  to  stop  the  exodus.  People  will  leave.  If  you  are  a  young  professional  you  will  leave,”  Savouri  says.    The  million-­‐euro  question:  Are  they  coming  back?  According  to  Elaine  Moriaty  from  Trinity  College  it  is  important  to  consider  that  some  of  the  emigrants  might  return,  after  a  few  years  abroad.  She  argues  that  this  could  benefit  Ireland,  as  the  returning  migrants  are  better  skilled  and  more  experience  than  when  they  left.      

However,  that  still  leaves  Ireland  with  the  unanswered  question:  How  many  of  the  emigrants  will  return?    According  to  Edwina  Shanahan,  her  experience  at  Visa  First  indicates  that  many  of  the  younger  emigrants  want  to  return  to  raise  a  family  if  the  Irish  economy  recovers.    However  Piaras  Mac  Èinrí  from  Cork  University  warns  not  to  put  too  much  trust  into  these  promises.    “People  will  always  give  you  the  reason,  that  they  want  to  come  back  to  bring  up  there  children  in  Ireland,  but  I  really  think  peoples  way  to  act  has  more  to  do  with  there  long  term  view  on  the  economic  and  social  prospects  for  Ireland.  And  there  is  a  lot  of  pessimism  at  the  moment,  much  more  than  in  the  1980’s,”  he  says.    Headed  Down-­‐under  Back  at  Isaacs  Hostel,  Dan  McGrath  is  looking  forward  to  get  on  the  move.  His  choice  right  now  is  between  the  popular  destinations  Canada  and  Australia,  but  a  girlfriend  down-­‐under  might  be  the  determining  issue.  However,  even  without  a  girlfriend  abroad,  Dan  would  still  have  no  doubt  in  leaving  Ireland.    ”I  would  definitely  be  leaving  anyway.  I  don’t  see  the  point  in  investing  my  time  and  life  in  Ireland,  if  I’m  only  to  hit  my  head  against  the  wall.  I’s  getting  a  bit  bleak  to  be  honest,”  Dan  says.    

Dan  McGrath  dreams  of  raising  a  family.  Something  he  will  not  risk  to  do  in  his  home  country  right  now.  -­‐  Photo:  Michael  Hjøllund