Emigration is not a choice for everyone

Even though there are 434,000 people on the live register, the level of employment has remained comparatively high.

There are currently 1.8 million people working, which could be contrasted with things a quarter of a century ago.

“I remember in the 1980s when times were quite bad, employment dropped to about 940,000,” Michael Noonan, the finance minister explained. Now there are nearly twice as many people employed, so the situation is really quite different.

Around 40,000 Irish citizens are expected to emigrate to places like Australia and Canada this year. “There are always young people coming and going from Ireland,” the minister added. “It’s a small island. A lot of people want to get off the island.”

It is ironic that the same kind of argument was raging 25 years ago when then tánaiste — the late Brian Lenihan, Sr — controversially stated in an interview with Newsweek Magazine: “We can’t all live on a small island.”

It is not the role of politicians to insist that everybody should remain in this country. Some people wish to leave, and that is — and should always be — their right. Three of Mr Noonan’s five adult children have chosen to live abroad.

In the context of his overall remarks, the minister obviously has more reason than most to realise that some of our emigration is a lifestyle choice. He should, however, have emphasised that much of the emigration is essentially compelled by unemployment.

By not stressing this, he left himself wide open to the accusation of being somewhat indifferent to the problem.

There are 180,000 people classified as long-term claimants on the live register. Many of the young people who are emigrating could join them.

In one sense, therefore, the Government should welcome the fact that young people have the drive and the initiative to seek work abroad, where they can find it, rather than fester here on the dole.

This country must take initiatives to ensure that these industrious young people will receive due credit in terms of preferment in the coming years when they hopefully return to Ireland to work.

Today marks the 93rd anniversary of the foundation of Dáil Éireann, and we should be mindful that some of the leaders of our successful quest for independence had spent formative years of their young adult lives abroad — like Arthur Griffith in South Africa or Michael Collins in London.

As a nation we have had strong international ties going back over centuries. Emigration is not an issue about which any politicians should be blasé. Our politicians should be nourishing those connections by taking — and being seen to take — positive initiatives to facilitate and encourage our emigrants to retain their ties with this country and foster their desire to return home.