Recently published statistics from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that emigration from Ireland is at its highest rate since 2015; in the year to April, a whopping 69,000 people left Ireland’s shores. 10,600 of those moved to Australia, the highest number since 2013, shortly after Ireland slowly started to recover from its worst recession on record. One would be hard-pressed to find someone in Ireland who has not been affected by emigration. Indeed, this is a nation of emigrants, but does it have to be? The Irish Times reported that 68% of people aged 25 to 44 in Ireland still live with their parents, and not coincidentally, 41% of people aged 18 to 33 are either actively planning or strongly considering emigrating. When there is no longer the promise of being able to own a house and start a family, can we blame young people for looking elsewhere?
So where are people moving? While a third want to move to another EU country, for 61% of them moving to a country where English is the first language is preferable. 29% are planning to move to Australia and New Zealand, 23% to North America and only 9% to the UK. While it seems obvious why young people are not interested in moving to the UK, as its economic situation is remarkably similar to Ireland’s, we must look at why Australia and North America are such popular destinations, to figure out what Ireland could do to keep young people here. After all, most of the young people are highly educated and skilled individuals, many of whom feel as if they are undervalued and overworked in Ireland, hence why they go looking for something better. It is especially popular for recent graduates of healthcare degrees such as medicine and nursing to move to Australia. They are asked why in a relatively recent Irish Times article and the answer is quite simple: work-life balance. We therefore have a situation where we as a country are paying for the education of critical healthcare workers, just for other countries to benefit from it; when faced with a choice between poor pay and non-existent work-life balance in Ireland, or sandy beaches and competitive salaries in Australia, the answer is clear.
“When young, highly sought after, highly educated, young people leave Ireland, it is the Irish people who suffer the most”
In 1991, only 15% of those over 15 had a third-level qualification; today, that number is at 50%, but what do we have to show for it? Figures showing that 68% of those in their late 20s still live with their parents show little to no promise for those wishing to begin their adult lives and start a family of their own. After paying a pretty penny in taxes to fund the HSE, Irish people can expect to be on waiting lists for months, if not sometimes years, for routine check-ups or mental health appointments. When young, highly sought after, highly educated, young people leave Ireland, it is the Irish people who suffer the most.
Markedly more educated than older generations, young people have not been given the same opportunities as previous generations. Higher education was presented as an opportunity for prosperity, however it has since become a mere expectation, not rewarding the hard work and intelligence it takes to attain a third-level qualification. The government must reward the hard work and ingenuity of our peers, and make good on the promises of higher education. Our friends leaving for Australia, Canada, and the UK want to contribute to this country, but they also rightly expect fair compensation for their efforts. Irish young people are some of the most highly educated in the world, and we must take seriously the fact that they are highly in demand. Instead of accepting high emigration as a fact of life, the government should aggressively compete with the rest of the world to provide the best benefits possible. We didn’t spend an enormous amount of taxpayer money out of a sense of altruism for larger, more well off countries, so why lay down and let it happen? We expect no less than a government that will fight tooth and nail for us to stay here; we want to feel valued by this country.
It is certainly uncontroversial to say that it is saddening to see so many young people leaving Ireland, but it is not difficult to understand why they do so. Ireland does offer many opportunities, great universities and employment options, but that is clearly not enough. The conversation must evolve, however, away from empty platitudes around the housing and health crises to a demand for a return on our investment in our own education, as well as to point out the wastefulness of our government paying to educate its citizens, just for other countries to benefit. We want our friends to return to a country that values them.
