Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I recall a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the Irish people genuinely believed that Ireland was finally in a position to ensure that we could keep our young people here. As many of our relatives returned to make their lives here again, we believed that emigration would become a thing of the past and be banished to the realm of folk memory - to stories of uncles, sisters and cousins going to Boston or Birmingham and of tough times in the 80s. We believed that at least we would never see times like that again. We brought our young people up to expect more than we did - jobs, prosperity and a higher standard of living. We promised them the world, but how tragically wrong we were. They were let down and were betrayed. Every town and village has been hit by emigration.

Since the Government came to power, 266,000 people have left the State. It could be suggested that many of these are immigrants returning to their countries, but the number of such people does not come anywhere near the total number leaving. Irish nationals accounted for 50,900, 57.2%, of all emigrants. We are talking about levels of emigration that we have not seen since Famine times. It is young people, more than anyone, who are emigrating, and that is the reason we put forward this motion.

Of the 89,000 emigrants this year, some 34,800 were between 15 and 24 and 41,000 were between 25 and 44. These account for approximately 70% of emigrants. These are shocking and worrying statistics, but I do not believe they truly tell the full story. The Government may argue that some of those are people who want to travel and see the world. That may be true, and travel can be a marvellous thing, but let us not fool ourselves. In the case of the majority of those 89,000 we are talking about young people who had not intended to leave. These people may have spent a year or two on the dole, hunting fruitlessly for jobs or doing a handful of hours a week in menial jobs that could not provide anything near the level of income required to pay rent.

It is not only those who leave who are hurt by emigration. Communities are decimated, particularly in the west. It is very tough on parents to look at the empty space at the dinner table when they imagined it would never again come to this. My son returned recently from Australia. I am delighted to have him home, but he has not yet managed to find employment and I do not know what he is going to do. People left for various reasons, but for many of them it was as simple as this: they felt there was nothing here for them. We seem to have a Government that refuses to persuade them otherwise. It has no comprehensive youth unemployment strategy and seems to be of the view that the situation will resolve itself in good time and that if people have to leave, well, so be it. This is an appalling and complacent attitude that we will bitterly regret in years to come.

The Government will parade its youth guarantee, but in truth it is woefully inadequate. The budget only provided an additional €14 million for the youth guarantee. At best this will only provide 3,250 new labour activation places for the under 25s. The ILO has stated that a proper youth guarantee would cost us €347 million, excluding administrative costs. The National Youth Council has stated it would cost €400 million. We are a very long way from that. Apart from the youth guarantee, the Government's youth unemployment policy is simply to point to JobBridge, which is effectively forcing many young people to work for free, displacing real jobs and devaluing work.

Young people, many of whom are very qualified and capable, can end up on a merry-go-round of training courses and internships without any of these leading to high-quality employment. In fact, there is no joined-up thinking. These are only some of the many ways the Government's employment policies have indirectly affected young people. There has been a complete demolition of the community sector and a huge reduction in the number of CE schemes. These were areas in which, in times of difficulty and in areas where jobs were scarce, young people could do real, meaningful work and be paid for it.

The changes to the state pension age were deeply unjust to the elderly and particularly hard on those who do heavy physical work. They also have implications for young people, because jobs are being displaced as older people stay in the workforce longer. There is a need for action. Not so long ago, one of the State's assets was a young population and workforce. That is changing rapidly. This has implications not only for the economy but for us as a society and for these young people and their families. If we do not take action now, I am genuinely concerned about what the country will be like in decades to come.

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