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.