irish emigration skyrockets
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Final project from my 3. semester on the Danish School of Media and Journalist (International semester)TRANSCRIPT
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.
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000 100000
1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
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