US news report highlights disillusionment of returned emigrants
Monday, March 9th, 2009The disillusionment of Irish emigrants who moved back home to take part in Ireland’s booming economy has been featured in on the CBS Evening News in the US.
The three emigrants profiled include Brendan Landers, who wrote of his disappointment after returning from Canada in the Irish Times last month. He said that his website got over 7,000 hits after the article appeared. Of his fellow returned emigrants, he said, “what they’d been feeling is basically a disappointment with our country”.
Ed Neale returned from Holland, where he was studying architecture, but returned to find the jobs had dried up. “It was really a blip in the nation’s history,” he said. “You know, we are traditionally a very poor country. We’re a nation of emigrants and those times are coming back.”
Marina Giblin gave up her job in banking in San Francisco to raise her four-year-old daughter near family in Dublin. “The reality of it is we partied very hard and we forgot there would be a hangover.” When asked if she’d leave again, Giblin replied, “If I have to go, I’ll go. Yeah, I will.”
Watch the video:
See more on the CBS news website.
1700 returning Irish affected by habitual residency: Times
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008Nearly 1,700 Irish citizens have been refused benefits under the habitual residency requirement introduced in Ireland in 2004. That year, benefits were restricted to those who had been habitually resident in the country for two years. The move was to combat so-called ‘benefits tourism’, and emigrant groups had been assured that returning emigrants would not be affected.
The Irish Times reports that the restrictions have affected 1,684 returning emigrants and other Irish citizens who had not been living in Ireland on a regular basis.
Joe O’Brien of Crosscare Migrant Project says the restricutions are often applied inconsistently and serve as a barrier to those thinking of returning home. Mr O’Brien said,
returning emigrants were advised not to completely cut links with the country they were returning from.
This is because some returning emigrants end up leaving Ireland again within a relatively short period of time.
“This goes directly against what is required of the habitual residency condition. Claimants must demonstrate that they severed links with the US, for example, through a terminated tenancy or closed bank account,” he said.
New guidelines will be produced by the Department of Social and Family Affairs to ensure consistency.
The matter was also discussed in the Oireachtas.
Sheila Gleeson of the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centres in the US has pointed out that an area of concern is that Irish immigrants who return to Ireland to care for a sick relative will be denied a carer’s allowance if they cannot show they have no intention of leaving Ireland again.
Any returning Irish person who has a problem getting benefits should contact Crosscare Migrant Project.