Ireland’s working emigrants reluctant to return home

WHEN Toby Gilbert decided to emigrate last year, he did not choose Australia over Dublin for sunshine and sandy beaches — he just wanted a few more free hours to see his wife.

Fed up with working punishing hours and barely seeing each other, the two doctors were among almost 50,000 Irish people who left the country permanently last year, a near four-fold increase since Ireland’s economic crisis began in 2008.

But just as worrying for a country keen to turn another chapter in its painful history of emigration around, the couple are part of a growing cohort of graduates who are leaving jobs, rather than benefits, to seek better opportunities abroad.