Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The economic recession has had a devastating effect on people throughout the State, but I argue that those living in rural Ireland are suffering more. The social consequences of the number of young people leaving rural Ireland are having a desperate and devastating effect, not just on themselves and their immediate families but on grandparents and communities as a whole. Young people living in rural Ireland face unsurmountable obstacles, and that is the reason they are leaving in droves. They see no possibility of work. The traditional employment in the construction sector is gone and no longer exists in rural Ireland. People who work at home on a small farm can no longer supplement their incomes by working in the construction sector. That is a thing of the past.

People of my age who watched the tide of emigration in the 1980s and previously in the 1960s hoped they would never see the like again. However, the Skype generation is now with us and broken-hearted grandparents all over the country only get to see their children's children on a computer screen. I meet these people all the time in my area and every time I look at my grandchildren - I have ten of them - I feel so grateful and lucky that they are here with us. Others are not so lucky.

The figures indicate that almost 65,000 young people are unemployed, but more than 260,000 young people have left the country. Employment in the period since the Government took office has fallen by 18,000. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, in the course of justifying the cutting of the allowances for people under 25 who are not working, suggested that they needed that incentive to take up work or training. That is a disgraceful statement. It is disgraceful to suggest that cutting the allowance and removing that money from the local economy is an incentive for people to find work.

How can one find work when it is not there? The only way young people can find work is to get on a boat or aeroplane and get out of the country.

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