Gerry Adams
Question:288. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his strategy to tackle emigration. [55211/13]
View answerWednesday, 15 January 2014
Questions (288, 289, 291, 292)
Gerry Adams
Question:289. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his strategy to enable Irish emigrants to return to Ireland. [55212/13]
View answerGerry Adams
Question:291. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he has examined the report Irish Emigration in an Age of Austerity produced by UCC’s EMIGRE Project earlier this year. [55214/13]
View answerGerry Adams
Question:292. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he has met the authors of the report Irish Emigration in an Age of Austerity produced by UCC’s EMIGRE Project to discuss its findings. [55215/13]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 288, 289, 291 and 292 together.
Lack of employment opportunities during the recession has, no doubt, contributed to emigration in recent years. However, even during the so-called “Celtic Tiger” years, Irish people chose to emigrate for career or personal reasons. It is also a factor that, where a person employed in a multinational company in Ireland undergoes an intra-company transfer to a different country, this is also classified as emigration in the CSO statistics.
The number of Irish emigrants who have returned to Ireland in the past two years is estimated at 36,000. Many of them are coming home having gained skills and expertise abroad that we can now capture to strengthen the operation and management of companies based here.
At a macro level the Government’s strategy is to re-build the economy and accelerate the transition to a sustainable, jobs-rich economy based on enterprise, innovation and exports. This Department’s focus is primarily on employment creation in the Enterprise Sector. We are doing this through the Action Plan for Jobs and have already seen the positive results of the action being taken across the whole of Government to support the enterprise sector to sustain existing jobs and create new ones.
Recent figures published by the CSO indicate that the number of people employed in Ireland increased by 58,000 in the year to Quarter 3 2013, which is a reversal of the situation which faced the Government coming into office. That increase in employment is made up of a mix of people; some leaving the Live Register, some entering the Labour Market for the first time and some returning emigrants.
There are many initiatives from other Departments that seek to provide alternative routes for those who might be considering emigration – JobBridge, Springboard, Momentum and JobPlus are all new initiatives supplementing existing programmes in FÁS and the Department of Social Protection.
I am aware of the UCC report from last September and its findings, which showed that 47% of Irish emigrants had full time jobs when they emigrated, while just under 40% wanted to travel and experience other cultures. Others will have moved within their company to postings in other countries as part of a career development or global mobility plan. Many of these emigrants will gain important skills and insights from working overseas, but may well return to Ireland in the future.
I am clearly concerned that emigration is impacting on so many households, especially in rural areas, but I have noted the finding that a sizeable proportion of emigrants are leaving for reasons other than being unemployed.
While the private sector has been adding on average 1,200 jobs per week for the past year is a very encouraging sign for the economy, we must continue to build on this progress and support further job creation. I am currently preparing the 2014 Action Plan on behalf of the Government and we will continue, through that process, to build on the success of the actions we have taken over the last two years.