Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The additional funding primarily relates to the emigrant support programme. We have already received a number of applications under that fund this year. It is a grant system, mainly to the UK. There are some additional areas with which the Deputy will be familiar in the USA and Canada. We want to be in a position to approve those grants straightaway once we get approval from the Oireachtas. We have more applications for funding than we have provided for. That in itself is a good and a bad sign. It is a sign that demand is greater, but it is good that we are also able to respond.

We are finding that emigrants to new areas of emigration such as Australia, Canada and the Middle East are sometimes leaving more by choice. In the past, people had to leave to get a job in London, somewhere else in the UK or in the USA. We are now finding a lot of Irish people going to these countries are better educated than previous generations. With international travel they come back a little more often than would have been the case in the past. They are probably more independent of the Irish State, and good at making their own networks. However, it is more difficult for the Department to have as good a link with those people because it is more fluid than it would have been with more traditional groups of emigrants in the past.

We encourage everybody to get involved. It is informal. Local GAA and Comhaltas clubs are where a lot of Irish people gravitate in their own right. They are the groups we like to keep involved with. Some of the cases we are talking about today would be from some of those organisations that have applied for funding. In the next couple of days, we hope to be able to approve the funding allocations that are on the books and waiting for clearance through the Supplementary Estimate.