Election 2011 - Emigration figures a real indictment

IN what has been a terribly distressing time for anyone who wants to be proud to be Irish, and as this wretched government shamelessly clings to power, one indicator of failure published this week may not have received the attention it must.

Though it is tempting to turn away, even for a few hours, from the miseries brought about by our “vindicated” Taoiseach Brian Cowen, his government, his predecessors and our misplaced trust the weeks leading to a general election is not the time to look away. Doing so just guarantees more of the same.

This week’s report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) suggested that 100,000 people will have to leave this country to find work in the next two years. They tell us that more than 1,000 people will leave each and every week of 2011 — 60,000 — and that 40,000 more will follow them to only God knows where next year.

As an indicator of economic failure few are as irrefutable or more heartbreaking. We are, after all, talking about the forced relocation of loved ones, children, brothers, sisters and in some terrible instances, fathers or mothers are separated from their children because this society cannot offer them work.

That so many of these people will be bright, very well-educated, high-energy young people, the very ones to vital to our recovery, is a terrible blow to this society’s sense of possibility and self-confidence.

Canada’s decision in recent days to make it easier for some Irish people to work there only underlines that sense of loss and frustration.

This evacuation, for it is nothing less, will keep unemployment rates below the 2010 high-water mark of 13.5%. Emigration has been a constant in Irish life and making it unnecessary was one of the great motivators for those who sacrificed so much to build this Republic. That the plague is so resurgent, so unavoidable for so many, challenges us all to reconsider the ideas we have accepted as truths for so very long, maybe too long.

In the coming weeks politicians will make promises on job creation and protection. In better times we could smile indulgently at these promises but today, as emigration soars and national debt reaches frightening, debilitating levels, we would be fools not to filter the cheerleading from the reality. Too much depends on it.

We may bluster and pontificate about national debt but getting or keeping a job is the popular frontline of this great crisis. Creating work for those who do not have it is the most pressing issue facing this country.

When the candidates come looking for your vote do not be fobbed of with the kind of vague wishful thinking that has passed for political discourse for far too long. Do not indulge your inherited predisposition which is no more than a bias shaped by others in the dim and distant past.

Remind yourself about how terribly high the stakes are for you and your family and act accordingly. Make this democracy work for you, for your family and for our future. No one else will.