Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. A number of years ago, the Department of Foreign Affairs commissioned a report on this and set out a number of actions that can be taken to assist Irish people returning home. Roughly 30,000 Irish citizens come home every year - 90,000 in the past three years. In many cases, they have not been away for long and so it can be straightforward but where they have been away for a long time, it can be much more challenging, as is often the case in moving to another country. There are things we can do that are under our control and we are working on them. Unfortunately, others are more complicated, particularly regarding banking records and so on. We are keen to assist our citizens to move back home should they wish to and they are returning home in very big numbers.

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