Emigration numbers - Minister’s attitude is worrying

FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan has a regrettable tendency to put his foot in it.

His observation that some people had left our shores as a “lifestyle” choice flies in the face of Ireland’s exodus of tens of thousands of young emigrants seeking work abroad.

It is apposite to quote his remarks on emigration at a press conference yesterday: “There are always young people coming and going from Ireland. Some of them are emigrants in the traditional sense. It’s a small island, others simply want to get off the island for a while. A lot of people go to Australia. It’s not been driven by unemployment at home — it’s driven by a desire to see another part of the world and live there.”

Adding that he had five adult children, three of them working abroad, he said: “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.”

It would be disingenuous to dismiss such comments as flippant or blasé. For the vast majority of emigrants, most of them in their 20s and 30s, the decision to seek work abroad has been a matter of dire necessity. Their departure represents the most serious brain drain this country has experienced since Famine times.

The minister is keen to put the best face on Ireland’s current difficulties. And with the troika’s praise for the Government’s austerity programme ringing in his ears, he is critical of those who ‘talk down’ the economy. Fair enough. But regardless of what distinction he may draw, to imply that emigration is somehow a lifestyle choice is to deny reality.

It disregards, for instance, the claim by the Union of Students of Ireland that emigration masks the true extent of the unemployment situation.

Arguably, the number of people signing on would be far greater than 447,100, a jobless rate of 14.4%, were it not for the hordes of young people who had to emigrate for work, many of them our brightest and best.

The student’s union has accused the Government of making “little or no attempt” to keep graduates, the future drivers of the smart economy, from emigrating to seek job opportunities on foreign shores.

Referring to the 100,000 workers who lost their jobs in the building industry in the course of 15 months, Mr Noonan observed that many had emigrated. “That’s life in modern Ireland and they have to do their best. I hope they’re successful abroad.”

Brigid McCole and the hepatitis C debacle come to mind. In light of such comments, the question has to be asked whether the underlying tone of his remarks is echoed around the Cabinet table? If so, then the country is in even deeper trouble than people have feared.