Irish flying to Queensland advised to avoid disaster areas

THE Department of Foreign Affairs is advising Irish citizens flying into Queensland to keep informed of regional weather forecasts and avoid disaster areas.

Irish people have been flocking to Queensland in general and Brisbane in particular for more than 100 years but the influx has been even more rapid in the last five years.

That is because as Ireland’s recession has taken hold, workers have headed for Brisbane in the hope of securing work in an economy that is thriving and that, to all intents and purposes, has been unaffected by the global recession.

The city has developed vastly over the last 20 years and is still awash with property development. Many of the main building sites have a large cohort of Irish workers plying their trade there.

The result is that the Queensland Irish Association now has more than 10,000 members and the Queensland Gaelic Football Association has six large clubs.

In all there are approximately 60,000 Irish-born people permanently resident in Australia with up to a further 15,000 young Irish people travelling to the country each year as participants on the “Working Holiday schemes”.

In the Australian census of 2006, more than 1.8 million Australians declared themselves of Irish background and, of those, more than 450,000 indicated that at least one of their parents was born in Ireland.

Last night Queensland Tourism issued a press release advising travellers to the country that most of the tourism destinations around the state are still open including the Whitsundays, Mackay, Townsville and Tropical North Queensland.

“With the exception of Rockhampton Airport, all Queensland airports are currently open,” it said. “Please contact your travel agent, accommodation, attraction or tour provider directly for concerns about any current bookings you may have or before considering changing your travel plans.”