Flight from rural Ireland the biggest crisis facing economy, report warns

THE flight, not just from the land but from rural Ireland by its most educated population, is developing into the single biggest crisis facing the Irish economy over the next two decades.

A new report, Rural Ireland 2025, compiled by an expert group from NUI Maynooth, University College Dublin and Teagasc, warns that Government policy is failing rural Ireland and neither indigenous industry nor the national spatial strategy are capable of halting the current slide.

It also concludes full-time farmers would drop from 40,000 to 10,000 by 2025.