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

I thank the Minister of State for his detailed response. I agree with him that the Government is doing a great deal to combat unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. The revised pathways to work strategy for 2013 contains 50 measures, two of the most significant of which focus on youth unemployment through the delivery of the youth guarantee nationally and the development of social clauses in capital spending contracts, which would entail giving jobs to people out of work. I am very much aware of the work being done by the Government to ensure opportunities are created for people to remain in the State but, according to the EMIGRE study, 47% of those who have emigrated left full-time employment. We must ask ourselves what are the other reasons people are leaving. More important, given we have strong statistics, are there ways the Government, perhaps through the CSO, which is our best arm for analysis data, which it does well, can improve data gathering to ensure we have the best picture of the people leaving the country?

Based on gathering the most evidence we can, we could best inform policy for the future. If we want Ireland to continue to grow, we will need to ensure opportunities are created for some emigrants to return. For example, a one-stop-shop website that Irish people could visit while aboard could be an innovative response. It could advertise jobs and so on. I do not wish to be prescriptive because I do not have all the answers. The emigrant study needs to be used to help inform future policy around how we deal with people who have left our shores and who wish to come home, given that more than 80% of emigrants said that if the economy improved, the likelihood of them deciding to come home would increase.

I thank the Minister of State for his time and I hope his Department will take this proposal on board, particularly in the context of the comprehensive EMIGRE study, which is based on qualitative and quantitative data research over the past year.

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