Ms Marie-Clare McAleer:

To touch on what Deputy Calleary said, I agree, to an extent, about the discourse around this issue. When I spoke to the young people, they said it felt like they are gone and that no one was responding to the issue. They mentioned the political system. To some extent, the discourse has been set by the media and there is this focus on whether one leaves by choice or necessity. While that is important, we really need to get passed that and put in place a policy response which takes on board the needs of the country, supports young people who are still here and tries to retain them and ensures we can get people back. In this regard, we can be very proactive.

If Government funded the ongoing collection of quantitative data on who is leaving the country, it would be extremely useful because we cannot have a policy response if we do not know where people are going and their profiles, ages and qualifications. If jobs arise, how can we possibly keep in touch with them?

The other aspect of the research that was fascinating was that these people keep in touch with what is going on in Ireland on a daily basis. They read The Irish Times and the Irish Independent , they know what is going on in the political system and they want to be engaged. They are leaving the country but they feel there is a silence around it and that it is just not spoken about possibly because of recession and the focus being on creating the conditions for job creation. It is really important we have a strategy in place.