asked the Minister for Finance if he accepts the projected emigration figures published by the ESRI, which indicated that 159,000 people will emigrate from April 1986 to April 1992; if he has any specific plans to reduce that number; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Emigration Figures.
60.
I presume the Deputy is referring to the Economic and Social Research Institute's document "Medium-Term Review: 1987-1992" which was published late last year. The review assumes net emigration totalling 159,000 over the six years to April 1992.
The ESRI projections were based on their assessment of the likely trend in the labour force over the medium-term using data available up to mid-April 1986. Given labour force trends during the first half of the 1980s, the net migration assumption made by the ESRI was not unreasonable and was in fact within the range of the migration assumptions incorporated in the "Population and Labour Force Projections 1991-2021" published by the Central Statistics Office, in April 1988.
The CSO's population estimates for 1987 and 1988 suggest trends in emigration in 1987 and 1988 broadly consistent with the ESRI assumptions for those years. However, the outturn for employment and unemployment shown by the Labour Force Survey results for 1987 and preliminary results for 1988, which have recently become available, indicate trends markedly at variance with those projected by the ESRI. For the period 1986 to 1988, the ESRI projected a fall of 30,000 in the total at work whereas the outturn indicates a rise of 5,000. Likewise, the institute projected a rise of 26,000 in unemployment whereas it actually fell by 11,000.
The continued success of the Government's economic policies is providing the economic environment for a strengthening of the positive employment trends now emerging. This improved economic environment supports the confidence of the job creation agencies that the employment objectives of the Programme for National Recovery can be achieved. Without the decisive action the Government has taken, the outlook for emigration would have been particularly bleak. However, I am confident that an acceleration of the recent positive employment performance will reduce the pressures on emigration by providing increasing opportunities for job seekers here.