Ms Marie-Claire McAleer:

I agree with everything the Deputy has said. The one in four figure is particularly acute in rural areas.

I need to clarify that some of the quantitative data was from the UCC study but the NYCI's study was qualitative with the exception of a poll of sample size of 1,000 people that was undertaken by Red C.

With regard to the young people that we spoke to, I dedicated a chapter to the impact and that includes the generation gap and the impact on the family. The revelations that I heard were very sad. I did not go into detail about the social impact because I was conscious of the committee's remit. The impact on the family is very significant. Many grandparents are considering leaving because their children have left and their grandchildren want to be closer to their grandparents. They are considering relocation.

In terms of facilitating return migration, I am very aware of countries who are trying to attract skilled people like Canada and Australia. I think Ireland will be in the same position. I have referenced the following in the study. In 1991 the National Economic and Social Council conducted a study on the social and economic impact and implications of emigration. The NESC, in its study, made some very good recommendations on strategy and how it would need to engage with public employment services in order to incentivise return migration. A lot of the findings are extremely relevant to the situation today.

Ireland is not very good at planning for the future and policy planning tends to be reactive. Up until now there has not been any data gathered on the profile of the people leaving. There has been a data deficit. The Central Statistics Office collects data but it does not disaggregate whether it is Irish or non-Irish citizens. Therefore, one needs to examine the CSO's data and the immigration figures from receiving countries. There is not a lot of information available. The UCC study is the first of its kind. We need to put in place a tracking mechanism to profile the age, qualifications and destination of emigrants. If we did so then we could get a picture of the numbers leaving, respond properly and thus inform a policy response. The number of people concerned suggests that we need a dedicated policy response.

Another question was whether NYCI intended to conduct a follow up study. We would love to carry out a follow-up study but we will not track the same group because it is a qualitative research study, not a longitudinal study. We are extremely interested in conducting a follow-up study because ongoing data collection of this nature is extremely important. Obviously resources are key for conducting such research although the study was done on a shoestring budget.

I gave a flavour of some of the key findings of the UCC study. However, the UCC study was very large and contains a lot of information that would be very useful to explore and may be relevant to the policy areas of other committees.