No country for young men and women

I ATTENDED the Expo-Working Abroad Exhibition over the weekend and for the first time the enormity of our problems struck home.

How quickly we have gone from “new government-new hope” to “know government-no hope”. Here was the youth of the nation queuing up in their droves, not for a handout as the ideologues consistently accuse them of, but to emigrate in pursuit of an opportunity to work. And this was happening not a stone’s throw away from the seat of power.

Did any government member, and particularly from the Labour Party, bother to go to this exhibition to see for themselves the extent of the disaster that is unfolding?

The Minister for Health should also know that the largest and most consistent queue was for an agency recruiting nurses. Instead of engaging in an unedifying presidential campaign slanging match, should ministers not be organising a counter exhibition, complete with plans and ideas, urging our youth to stay and help rebuild the nation?

Or is the priority still to resuscitate the failed neo-conservative fiscal experiment at all costs? Creating a fair, decent and inclusive place is not on offer it seems.

All of this once again raises that nagging question which resides deep within the Irish psyche, “Have we any right at all to call ourselves a country?”

Jim O’Sullivan

Rathedmond

Sligo