John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In keeping with the final contribution in the preceding debate, I take this opportunity to congratulate my own county of Dublin on the fantastic victory of its team in the all-Ireland football final some weeks ago.

I acknowledge the fantastic work being done by the Central Statistics Office in collecting data on emigration from this State. That information is gathered from the quarterly national household survey and an analysis of applications for visas to countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia. The CSO also examines national insurance numbers given to Irish people in Britain. This considerable quantity of material can help to answer some of our questions about the people who are leaving this State.

Several other organisations are also engaged in data-gathering exercises on the issue of emigration. For example, representatives of the National Youth Council of Ireland attended a recent meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to speak about the information they compiled earlier this year about young people who have left Ireland. Of particular interest is the study released last Friday by the EMIGRE project at University College Cork. That report is based on more than 900 responses from households throughout the country, 1,500 responses from emigrants who completed an online survey, 500 responses from emigrants the report authors met at jobs fairs, and 55 indepth interviews carried out via Skype and Viber with Irish citizens living abroad. The study reflects a fine blend of both quantitative and qualitative research. As such, it tells us not only the number of young people on the move and their destination but also why they left and how they are finding life in their new country.

Emigration is a sensitive topic, and very few people in the country have been left untouched by it. Every Deputy to whom I have spoken has a family member, neighbour or friend who has left Ireland to live and work abroad. My niece has just been home for five weeks with her new baby before returning to Australia. She has made the decision to make her life in that country. It is important to note that people leave for a variety of reasons. Some of our recent emigrants are the young, educated people of whom we hear so much. Others are less well educated and were forced to leave because they cannot find work at home. There are also older people leaving behind families and mortgages. The vast majority of emigrants - 70%, according to the EMIGRE study - are in their 20s, almost half of whom left full-time employment in Ireland to live and work elsewhere. In other words, there are some significant differences between the types of people who are leaving now and those who left in the past. The EMIGRE study indicates that some 70% of those who leave keep in touch with events in Ireland by reading an online Irish newspaper. More than 90% of them are maintaining contact with friends and family at home, whether through Skype, Viber or Facebook, the latter being the most popular. Clearly, recent emigrants are eager to keep in touch with what is happening at home. The study also found that 40% of respondents would like to return to Ireland, with 82% saying they are likely to do so if the economy improves.

Does the Government intend to use the detailed data from the EMIGRE study to inform its policy response to emigration? We know the numbers leaving are large and growing, but there are no definitive statistics in this regard. We must adopt the most comprehensive approach possible in terms of analysing who is leaving, where they are coming from and why they have opted to move abroad. The economy is recovering and growth rates are slowly rising. The live register figures from last week show a decrease and are expected to reduce further in the coming months. Ireland has turned a corner. We owe it to those people who have left our shores, in many cases because they felt they had little choice but to do so, to create a policy response that will facilitate them returning as the economic situation continues to improve.

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