Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is becoming increasingly apparent that there are shortages of skilled workers in a number of areas. I am forever hearing that the problem in dealing with the housing crisis is capacity, by which we mean the capacity of the local authorities to have skilled workers who can build houses. There are capacity problems in the health service. I am referring to qualified health workers such as nurses and midwives. In education, in providing services for persons with special needs, and the mental health service there is a real deficit which is becoming a problem in the provision of skilled workers. Part of the problem at least is that a lot of younger people who are skilled and whom the State has paid to educate are leaving the country because wages are not sufficient to enable them to put a roof over their heads. They go elsewhere, taking their skills and abilities with them and consequently robbing the State of the ability to deal with the lack of capacity in key public services and the provision of infrastructure. The figures bear it out. The Minister of State will say there is net inward migration. However, it is clear from the further breakdown of the figures he has given that the biggest cohorts among the 64,800 leaving every year, a big number, are younger people who are educated. The biggest cohort is young people with a third level education, while the next biggest is young people who have completed the leaving certificate programme. It is obvious why they are leaving - they cannot afford to live here. They are moving elsewhere, to places where they will be better paid and can afford to live. It is a real problem which has to be acknowledged. We are going to run into deep trouble if we do not find ways to retain them to use the skills they have developed in a publicly funded education system to actually contribute to and benefit our society.

We have to make it possible for them to stay here. Will the Minister of State comment on who is leaving? From the figures available from the CSO, it is clear who is leaving, namely, the 18 to mid-30s cohort. That is a terrible loss and one we cannot afford if we are going to resolve some of the key challenges facing this country.

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