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Young unemployed believe government relying on them to emigrate

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

The National Youth Council of Ireland has released a study called, “Youth unemployment in Ireland: the forgotten generation”, and the results make for depressing reading. The survey examined the experience of 90 young, active jobseekers aged between 18 and 24. Among other things, it took a look at the effect of unemployment on the young people’s likelihood to emigrate.

As the executive summary states, Ireland’s rate of youth unemployment is troubling:

Ireland now has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in Europe – 24.2 percent among 15 to 24 year-olds compared with an average rate of unemployment of 19.9 percent for the 27 European Union member states in 2009. The scale of the problem is also masked by a very significant increase in the number of young people re-entering or remaining in education and a very considerable increase in the number of young people emigrating.

The report notes that the numbers of people under 25 emigrating increased from 15,600 in 2004 to 30,000 in 2009. The trend, of course, is continuing, with the ESRI most recently predicting net emigration of 100,000 over the next two years.

Among the survey’s findings:

– Of the 90 young jobseekers that were interviewed on a one to one basis all, or 100% of respondents, agreed that the ‘prospects for securing rewarding employment in Ireland are not very good.’

– Of those 90 young interviewees 70% agreed that it is more likely – rather than less likely – that they will emigrate within the next 12 months in response to their status of being unemployed here in Ireland.

– Among the 90 interviewees 90% were in agreement that ‘being unemployed has had a negative effect on my sense of well being.’

In relation to emigration, many survey respondents made it clear that they believed the government was not doing enough to alleivaite youth  unemployment, with some stating their believe that the government is relying on emigration as a way of relieving some pressure on the economy.

â€?They (Government) are relying on large amounts of us (young unemployed) emigrating over the next few years….â€? – Young job seeking early school leaver (Rural)

“It (emigration) seems to be the only policy response that they have…. Government are completely reliant on it (emigration) as a way to respond to the huge numbers of young people unemployed in Ireland.â€?  -Young jobseeker with Leaving Certificate and/or apprenticeship/vocational training qualifications (Urban)

“……Talk to any young person at the moment and emigration is on their mind…There just aren’t enough opportunities here (in Ireland)â€?  -Young job-seeking early school leaver (Urban)

“….Definitely…I am going to go (emigrate)…I don’t want to be sitting on the dole here (in Ireland) for another three or four years…â€? -Young jobseeker with Leaving Certificate and/or apprenticeship/ vocational training qualifications (Rural)

“I am sure it (large scale emigration) is built into the economic projections for the next five years because there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful policies being developed to help young unemployed people.�  -Young job-seeking third level graduate (Rural)

“You wonder do they (Government/policy makers) really want us (young unemployed) to stay (in Ireland)…We (social welfare recipients) are a drain…we are costing them (the exchequer) money…so they would probably be glad to see the back of us for a few years…That’s the way you feel anyway.â€?  -Young job seeking early school leaver (Rural)

“You (the young unemployed) certainly don’t feel encouraged to stay at the moment…Nobody is telling us there is light at the end of the tunnel…â€?  -Young job seeking early school leaver (Semi- Urban)

“…It (emigration) is a handy way for them ((Government /policy makers) to export the problem and to cut the costs (burden of social welfare payments on the national exchequer)…â€? Young job seeking early school leaver (Semi-Urban)

“It (emigration) probably isn’t written down or talked of (as a policy) but it certainly wouldn’t do the country any harm at the moment (if a large proportion of young jobseekers were to emigrate).�  -Young job seeking early school leaver (Rural)

I first wrote about young people’s perception that the government was encouraging emigration about a year ago, when the 2010 budget was announced. At the time, it seemed clear, judging from young people’s responses on Twitter, that many youths were viewing the lack of jobs initiatives and the cuts being made in social welfare as designed to encourage them to leave. How depressing to see this more formally confirmed.

See the full report on the National Youth Council of Ireland website.

Guest post on IrishGirlAbroad

Friday, January 21st, 2011

New York-based Irish journalist Frieda Klotz recently invited me to do a guest post on her blog. Frieda was running a series on what it was like to be watching the Irish economy implode from the inside. Frieda’s blog, “An Irish Girl Abroad – New York life through a European lens” is an insightful and perceptive examination of her experiences as an expat, so I was delighted to be invited to participate.

Here’s an excerpt, on the government’s response to the recent upsurge in emigration – read the rest on IrishGirlAbroad.

The governmental non-response has been striking. There has been no major speech by any minister discussing the exodus. On MerrionStreet.ie, government’s news service, a search for the word “emigration� turns up only two results. There have been almost no job stimulus programmes, and government politicians have expressed satisfaction with a drop in unemployment rates of a percentage point or two, despite the fact that the emigration of the jobless is surely responsible. One of the few government politicians to remark on emigration since the start of the crisis was Tánaiste Mary Coughlan: she was reviled for her statement that young people were emigrating �to enjoy themselves. That’s what young people are entitled to do� – a tone-deaf response that was reminiscent of the most notorious statement of the1980s exodus, Brian Lenihan’s “we can’t all live on a small island“.

What has not been lacking, however, is faith in the diaspora to solve our problems. While emigrants – dispossessed and disenfranchised – are untouchables to the establishment, when the ruling class looks at the Irish diaspora they see investors, philanthropists, cultural-product consumers, ancestor-seekers, and tourists. Lauded by Brian Cowen as “our huge and willing resource“, the 70 million are presumed to be ready to share their wealth and know-how to pull us out of this crisis. Government strategies on the economy, higher education, tourism, and culture give them prominent roles. The diaspora is related to the phenomenon of emigration, sure, but in a sanitised, less-painful way: we’d like them to buy our certificates of Irishness and come “home� for visits, but we don’t expect anyone to shed tears at the airport when they leave. We do hope they’ll contribute 100 million euro to building our new children’s hospital, however.

GlobalIrish.ie in the news…

Friday, January 21st, 2011

I’ve had quite a few press inquiries in the last month or two – an indication of the growing media interest in the experience of the Irish abroad, and in particular the voting rights issue.

Here’s a roundup, with some excerpts:

WSJ.com: Emigration soars as Irish look for a way out

“People really, genuinely believed emigration was over,” said Noreen Bowden, a consultant and former director of the Emigrant Advice Network.

Even with the rising numbers of departures, there’s still a notion that the effect is temporary and that emigrants will eventually return, but Bowden doesn’t think there’s any evidence to back up that idea.

“If you look historically, there was a big period of return in the 1970s and also for the Celtic Tiger. But the Celtic Tiger’s return was driven by huge staff shortages,” she said.

Irish Post: Votes for Emigrants

Noreen Bowden, a Diaspora consultant who was born in New York but spent the past 12 years living in Ireland, believes that Irish emigrants’ have paid the price for their own generosity. ‘Irish people aboard are very generous to Ireland in so many ways so there’s never been much of a need to go the extra mile to engage with them politically. Many countries have allowed emigrants to vote as a way to encourage them to contribute economically. Ireland has never needed to do that,’ the editor of GlobalIrish.ie explained to me last week.

TheJournal.ie: Calls grow for election votes for Irish abroad

Noreen Bowden of GlobalIrish.ie, which advocates voting rights for expatriates, said successive government hadn’t “seen it as a good thing to be able for people to be able to give their verdict on how the economy has been handled.�

IrishEcho (Aus): Fresh calls for vote to be extended to Irish abroad

Noreen Bowden, of emigration and diaspora website GlobalIrish.ie, told the Echo that momentum is building around the issue but stressed that it is important for a consensus to be reached.

“We’re so desperate to engage our emigrants economically but we need to do so politically too,� said Bowden.

“I think that Irish people abroad are as eager to vote on Irish economic policy as Irish people living in Ireland.�

Bowden says that she would personally favour a constituency-based approach, similar to that used by Italy.

She has recently launched the website Global Irish Vote, which advocates full voting rights for Irish citizens everywhere

Irish Central: Arguments for the abolition of Ireland’s upper house of parliament

The franchise rights of Irish emigrants have been a hotly contested issue of late, and author of GlobalIrish.ie Noreen Bowden is an enthusiastic advocate for giving the diaspora a say in the how the home country is governed: “Because we have about a million Irish-born citizens living overseas, the key thing we need to do is achieve a balance between the rights of non-resident and resident citizens. We do have a high number of citizens abroad, but that in itself is no reason for not allowing them a vote: we just need to work out the fairest and most appropriate method of representing them.�

“Emigrants are affected by government policies and decisions: perhaps most significantly right now, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of recent emigrants who may hope that their stay will be temporary. They should have a say in policies that may affect their chances of return. We need all hands on deck here to get us through this crisis: we should be working to maximise the contribution and input of all our willing citizens, no matter where they liveâ€?. Regarding the potential role of the the Séanad, Bowden says its role could be an important one: “At present the Seanad is seen as a talking shop, of course, as there’s little real power there, but there’s a real openness to reform right now. We need to reinvent our structures to better represent – and give real power to – all of our citizens, including those overseas.â€?

GlobalIrishVote.com focuses on votes for the Irish abroad

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

With the election announced today, I just wanted to mention a new website I’ve put up about votes for the Irish abroad. While it contains some of the same information that’s on this website, it looks at the issue of emigrant voting rights in some more focused detail.

You can find it at www.globalirishvote.com.

Should we have a “Book of Irish connections”?

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

The Irish government has announced that the “Certificate of Irish Heritage” announced early last year, will get underway this month. Fexco, a Kerry-based company that also processes VAT refunds, has won the contract to provide the certificates. The initiative, which originated in the strategic review of US-Irish relations a couple of years ago, is aimed at providing concrete affirmation of Irish heritage to those ineligible for citizenship. There will be a small fee for the certificates; news reports last year suggested that certificate holders could get tourism-related discounts, but this aspect may have been dropped as recent reports do not mention this.

I think the idea is an interesting one, and will no doubt find popularity among some of the diaspora, but I’m not convinced such a certificate is the most meaningful way of allowing those of Irish heritage to connect with Ireland.

The problem with the certificate doesn’t really carry all that much meaning in itself: all it does is confirm that one has Irish relations, and allow you to emblazon that on a wall in some distant locale.

The programme seems vaguely reminiscent of India’s “Person of Indian Origin” status, but the differences between them highlight the lost opportunities of the Irish initiative. A PIO card is available to non-Indian citizens who have at any time held Indian passports, or have parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents who were born and resident in India, or a spouse of such a person. Although they have no political rights, PIO cardholders are entitled to a number of benefits, including:

• visa-free travel
• exemption from registration requirements for stays shorter than 6 months
• parity with non-resident Indians in educational and business matters.

Some of these benefits might be congruent with offers that Ireland could make to its wider diaspora. (For example, the Ireland Homecoming Study Programme could be made available to Certificate holders). If we are interested in truly valuing our diaspora, and giving back concrete benefits to them, it would make sense to explore such benefits. At the same time, however, such preferential treatment would not be unproblematic: should we not, for example, incorporate our so-called “affiliate diaspora” into such programmes – those people around the world who may have studied, worked, and/or lived in Ireland but who have no ancestral connections? Surely such people also deserve recognition for their own work as “informal ambassadors”. The Farmleigh Conference gave some mention of this affiliate diaspora, but it’s an area that is in need of development.

An even better model for Ireland to look at would be “The Book of Scottish Connections“, which was developed in 2005 to fit “the needs of tomorrow’s Scotland”, as The Deputy Public Service Reform Minister Tavish Scott described it at the time. He called it “an exciting opportunity for ex-pats, those with Scottish connections and others wanting to keep family records in Scotland up-to-date.”

And it is an exciting initiative. While here in Ireland we have the registry of Foreign Births, the Book of Scottish Connections goes much further, allowing for those with Scottish-born parents, grandparents, or parents or grandparents with an entry in the BSC  to have their births, marriages, civil partnerships or deaths registered. Such a measure would be a highly valuable record for generations to come. And as the ongoing campaign for the recording of Irish deaths abroad has shown, there is a need for record-keeping to keep up with the global nature of Irish life today.

So while the certificate of Irishness is a fine idea for a keepsake, it’s still worth investigating a more meaningful way of recording Irish connections that will benefit generations to come while stressing the relationship-based nature of the Irish diaspora’s connection with Ireland. We shouldn’t just send out these certificates as a sentimental document to our overseas relations: we should be viewing all information about these relationships as something to value and maintain for generations to come.

Emigration, accent and ‘oddness’

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

A sentence in a recent profile of an Irish poet living in New York left me pondering the subtle ways in which notions of Irishness among emigrants can be contested. Eileen Battersby wrote in the Irish Times about Connie Roberts, who grew up in an orphanage in Westmeath and moved to America 28 years ago. Battersby includes this sentence in her profile:

Roberts is quick, lively company, has a good sense of humour and that odd, hybrid accent Irish people acquire when they settle in New York.

What makes the New York/Irish blend “odd”? Admittedly, I’m biased: I grew up among people who spoke with that mellifluous accent, so to me it sounds like home. But it’s highly parochial to suggest that American-influenced hybrid accents – which perhaps tens of thousands of Irish-born people possess – are any odder than the peculiar regional vocal patterns of, say, South Dublin. New York is just one of the many regional influences on the speech of the Irish-born in Ireland and around the world. And with so many Irish-born people living in New York, it’s hardly an uncommon one. For a substantial proportion of the Irish Nation, hybridity is the norm.

But the tendency to use accent as an often exclusive signifier of  Irish identity  is one that has been documented by academics. A few examples:

• Bronwen Walter discusses how the lack of an Irish accent is a key feature of the identity of second-generation Irish people in England, in Voices in other ears.
• Ann Marie Joyce notes the ways accent marks the diasporic Irish as ‘other’ and contributes to the problematic nature of hybrid ethnic identity among the Irish in Britain, in Return migration from England to Ireland: The impact of accent on feelings of belonging.
• Caitriona Ni Laoire mentions how an Irish accent can be a signifier of belonging and otherness in “Complicating host/newcomer dualisms: Irish return migrants as home-comers or newcomers?“

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