Bulldozing ghost housing estates is like a flashback to famine times

WATCHING Vincent Browne’s news programme on Wednesday night I found myself thinking that young people should seriously consider emigrating because the prospects here seem so bleak. This is the third major recession I can remember and there are reasons for suspecting it could be the worst, notwithstanding the ERSI’s recent prediction that things will pick up in 2011.

It suggested that unemployment will drop from 13.5% to 13%, but that is largely because 60,000 Irish people have already emigrated and a further 40,000 are expected to go this year. These are the people who would normally be paying taxes that would fund the medical cards, free travel, and pensions of the retired generation. An exodus has already started for Australia.

Eleven young people left Gneeveguilla in Co Kerry for Australia in just one week recently. From 1996 to 2002 the population of the village actually went up from 230 to 239, but the gains of all those years were wiped out in a week. Upwards of 40 young people have left the Rathmore area for Australia this year.