Raising Emigration in the Dáíl

Topical Issue Debate  - John Lyons TD

The need for the CSO to gather further data on Emigration and particularly on the patterns of young people leaving Ireland.

Deputy John Lyons:

In keeping with the final contribution in the preceding debate, I take this opportunity to congratulate my own county of Dublin on the fantastic victory of its team in the all-Ireland football final some weeks ago.

I acknowledge the fantastic work being done by the Central Statistics Office in collecting data on emigration from this State. That information is gathered from the quarterly national household survey and an analysis of applications for visas to countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia.



The CSO also examines national insurance numbers given to Irish people in Britain. This considerable quantity of material can help to answer some of our questions about the people who are leaving this State.

Several other organisations are also engaged in data-gathering exercises on the issue of emigration. For example, representatives of the National Youth Council of Ireland attended a recent meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to speak about the information they compiled earlier this year about young people who have left Ireland. Of particular interest is the study released last Friday by the EMIGRE project at University College Cork.

That report is based on more than 900 responses from households throughout the country, 1,500 responses from emigrants who completed an online survey, 500 responses from emigrants the report authors met at jobs fairs, and 55 indepth interviews carried out via Skype and Viber with Irish citizens living abroad. The study reflects a fine blend of both quantitative and qualitative research. As such, it tells us not only the number of young people on the move and their destination but also why they left and how they are finding life in their new country.

Emigration is a sensitive topic, and very few people in the country have been left untouched by it. Every Deputy to whom I have spoken has a family member, neighbour or friend who has left Ireland to live and work abroad. My niece has just been home for five weeks with her new baby before returning to Australia. She has made the decision to make her life in that country. It is important to note that people leave for a variety of reasons. Some of our recent emigrants are the young, educated people of whom we hear so much. Others are less well educated and were forced to leave because they cannot find work at home. There are also older people leaving behind families and mortgages.

The vast majority of emigrants - 70%, according to the EMIGRE study - are in their 20s, almost half of whom left full-time employment in Ireland to live and work elsewhere. In other words, there are some significant differences between the types of people who are leaving now and those who left in the past. The EMIGRE study indicates that some 70% of those who leave keep in touch with events in Ireland by reading an online Irish newspaper. More than 90% of them are maintaining contact with friends and family at home, whether through Skype, Viber or Facebook, the latter being the most popular. Clearly, recent emigrants are eager to keep in touch with what is happening at home. The study also found that 40% of respondents would like to return to Ireland, with 82% saying they are likely to do so if the economy improves.

Does the Government intend to use the detailed data from the EMIGRE study to inform its policy response to emigration? We know the numbers leaving are large and growing, but there are no definitive statistics in this regard. We must adopt the most comprehensive approach possible in terms of analysing who is leaving, where they are coming from and why they have opted to move abroad.

The economy is recovering and growth rates are slowly rising. The live register figures from last week show a decrease and are expected to reduce further in the coming months. Ireland has turned a corner. We owe it to those people who have left our shores, in many cases because they felt they had little choice but to do so, to create a policy response that will facilitate them returning as the economic situation continues to improve.

Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach (Deputy Paul Kehoe):

As the Minister of State whose remit includes the Central Statistics Office, I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. Emigration, particularly by young people, is an issue of concern to many families across the country. The most recent population and migration estimates were published by the CSO on 29 August. The figures include estimates of immigration and emigration for the 12 months to mid-April of this year.

The results show that the numbers leaving increased to 89,000 from 87,000 the previous year. Immigration also increased over this period from 53,000 to 56,000. These combined changes resulted in a total net outward migration of 33,000, which shows a slight decline from the figure of 34,000 in the previous year.

The principal source of information on emigration and immigration is the quarterly national household survey. That survey is used to provide information on the flow of migrants by sex, age group, origin and destination, and nationality. Given the underlying seasonality and variability of all migration flows, the CSO does not publish these estimates on a sub-annual basis, such as every quarter or six months. In addition, the provision of data at a more detailed level, such as emigration by county, is not possible due to measurement issues associated with sub-populations in sample surveys of this nature.

However, the CSO is continuously improving the scope of information in this area. Recent improvements include the publication of data on the nationality of emigrants, estimates of the total population by nationality, and more detailed breakdowns of emigration and immigration by country of destination and origin. For example, in its most recent release the CSO published, for the first time, figures on emigration to Australia and Canada as individual destinations. The data show that in 2013, some 15,000 people moved to Australia, while 5,000 moved to Canada. Britain continues to be the principal destination for emigrants from Ireland, with 21,900 moving there in 2013. It is interesting to note that 5,000 people moved from Australia to Ireland in 2013, while some 10,000 moved here from the United Kingdom. There is clearly an ongoing movement of people both in and out of Ireland to these destinations.

The CSO also publishes annual figures on migration by age group. The 2013 data show that the peak age group for people emigrating was between 25 to 44, with 41,000, or 46%, of all emigrants in this category. That cohort is followed by those aged 15 to 24, who made up 35,000, or 40% of the total. The CSO does not produce data on age group broken down by nationality as the sample survey does not support that level of detail.

While people emigrate for a number of reasons, the desire to find meaningful work and opportunity is a prominent one. The Government is acutely aware of the scourge of youth unemployment and is prioritising policy responses accordingly.

The overarching strategy for tackling unemployment, including among our young people, is to ensure we have the best environment for a strong economic recovery. This includes, for example, the Action Plan for Jobs which improves enterprise supports, competitiveness, innovation and productivity. This is leading to many new job opportunities. In addition, we have strengthened programmes and services to assist jobseekers and keep them close to the labour market . For example, the Youthreach programme provides 6,000 places to train people aged between 15 and 20.

During Ireland's successful Presidency of the European Union, the so-called youth guarantee was agreed stating that member states should ensure that all young people under the age of 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. The development of the Ireland's plan is being led by the Department of Social Protection with the support of other relevant Departments, with input from the OECD. The Government has put in place a range of targeted responses for our unemployed young people, and we are determined to make improvements where necessary and these are under way.

Deputy John Lyons:  

I thank the Minister of State for his detailed response. I agree with him that the Government is doing a great deal to combat unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. The revised pathways to work strategy for 2013 contains 50 measures, two of the most significant of which focus on youth unemployment through the delivery of the youth guarantee nationally and the development of social clauses in capital spending contracts, which would entail giving jobs to people out of work. I am very much aware of the work being done by the Government to ensure opportunities are created for people to remain in the State but, according to the EMIGRE study, 47% of those who have emigrated left full-time employment. We must ask ourselves what are the other reasons people are leaving. More important, given we have strong statistics, are there ways the Government, perhaps through the CSO, which is our best arm for analysis data, which it does well, can improve data gathering to ensure we have the best picture of the people leaving the country?

Based on gathering the most evidence we can, we could best inform policy for the future. If we want Ireland to continue to grow, we will need to ensure opportunities are created for some emigrants to return. For example, a one-stop-shop website that Irish people could visit while aboard could be an innovative response. It could advertise jobs and so on. I do not wish to be prescriptive because I do not have all the answers. The emigrant study needs to be used to help inform future policy around how we deal with people who have left our shores and who wish to come home, given that more than 80% of emigrants said that if the economy improved, the likelihood of them deciding to come home would increase.

I thank the Minister of State for his time and I hope his Department will take this proposal on board, particularly in the context of the comprehensive EMIGRE study, which is based on qualitative and quantitative data research over the past year.

Deputy Paul Kehoe:

I appreciate the Deputy's comments on what the Government is doing to combat the scourge of youth unemployment. It is a problem and no Government will come up with a remedy overnight. However, we have introduced a number of stimulus packages in our budgets and I understand the Minister for Finance will include a stimulus package in budget 2014 to address the scourge of emigration and youth unemployment. We are winning the battle in this regard as we have concentrated on it. The Taoiseach will next year concentrate on jobs and job creation. We have to focus on this to prevent the high rate of emigration, particularly among young people.

The Deputy is correct that a significant number of young emigrants are leaving full-time jobs. Perhaps this is because of a desire for a better lifestyle or better weather but there is a range of reasons they are doing so. For example, two of my constituents emigrated to Australia in the past month. They both left full-time jobs in a pharmaceutical company and transferred to a sister company in Australia.

The CSO is always looking for ways to improve the way it gathers information. I represented the Government in Australia on St. Patrick's Day this year. It is a worthwhile exercise for all Ministers to go abroad and network with their counterparts in different parliaments and so on. I launched an Irish networking website in Perth. People can log in to find out about what is happening at home, job opportunities, stimulus packages and so on and also they are informed about what they need to do when they travel to Australia and about various helplines. This is an important site to make sure we look after our young people when they emigrate and to fill them in on what is happening back home as well. This will give them an opportunity to apply for jobs.


I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I compliment the CSO on the great work it does. As Minister for State with responsibility for the agency, I always encourage Ministers to use CSO data, which is readily available, as they develop Government policy.