Noonan under fire over emigrant remarks

MICHAEL NOONAN is facing a political “foot in mouth” storm after claiming that “lifestyle choices” were behind Ireland’s emigration crisis.

His Fianna Fáil rival in Limerick, Willie O’Dea, described the comments as “disgusting”.

Despite the economic crash driving 1,000 people a week to flee the country in search of work, the Finance Minister said yesterday that many youngsters “simply want to get off a small island”.

Mr Noonan used his own family’s experience to back up his view, stating: “A lot of people go to Australia, it’s not being driven by unemployment at home, it’s driven by a desire to see another part of the world and live there. I have five adult children, three of them living and working abroad. I don’t think any of the three could be described as an emigrant.

“It was a free choice of lifestyle and what they wanted to do with their lives. And there are a lot of families like that.”

He conceded that many emigrants were being driven abroad due to the grim outlook at home. “There are other people being driven abroad all right. By and large, what happened with the collapse of the building industry has driven a lot of forced immigration.”

Mr O’Dea, Fianna Fáil’s jobs spokesman, demanded that Mr Noonan apologise for the “disgusting” remarks. “For the minister to be so dismissive of the hurt that emigration has caused thousands of families is astonishing. There is an undeniable link between the high rate of unemployment and the number of people seeking work abroad out of economic necessity.”

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said the remarks showed how out of touch the minister was.

She compared the comments to those of ex-tánaiste Mary Coughlan, who was rounded on by Fine Gael and Labour for saying emigration was a “lifestyle” option. When Ms Coughlan made her remarks in 2010, Fine Gael said they “could have no confidence in a minister who showed such an alarming disconnect”.

A spokesperson for the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed said: “The majority of people are emigrating because they cannot find work at home. That is the biggest crisis facing us.”

Mr Noonan made the remarks after the EU/IMF/ECB troika ended a 10-day inspection of the state’s books.

Despite attempts by the Government to hype up the prospects of a breakthrough deal on the billions of euro being poured into Anglo, it received a pointedly cool response from the troika.

Though Ireland passed all the economic benchmarks, the troika slashed growth rate forecasts from 1.3% to 0.5% for the next year as it warned the country continued to face “considerable challenges”, but said the “robust” budget would see the deficit fall to the agreed 8.6% of GDP.