(en) Ireland WSM.ie: Education for Emigration: 2015
Letter accompanied a recent dole payment. It advertised a 'networking and interview day
for Irish Teachers DIRECTLY with UK schools' (emphasis in original). The exclamation mark
in the letter's heading - 'Teaching Opportunities in the UK!' - illustrates neatly how
readily, even enthusiastically the Irish state is prepared to export Ireland's young
people in order to preserve the status quo. ---- Of the 475,000 men, women and children
who have left Ireland since 2008, some 300,000 were aged 20-34 [1]. Imagine the entire
population of Cork city (c. 119,230) disappeared, followed by Galway city (c. 75,529) and
then Limerick city (c. 57,106) [1]. And you still wouldn't have reached the number of
young people who have left...
Youth emigration is the almost inevitable consequence of youth unemployment. Employment
for those aged 20-34 has fallen by a third [2]. The unemployment rate for those aged
between 20 and 24 years is 19.6 percent - twice the national average. Moreover, since the
crisis began, a whole series of 'emigration activation' measures have proliferated. For
those 24 years and under, the Jobseekers' Allowance is now EUR100 per week, well below the
standard EUR188. At 25 years old, your dole rises to EUR144. That's still well below the
standard payment. EUR144 per week is also less than 10 per cent of TDs' annual salary of
EUR87,258. (And don't forget their expenses...)
The push to disappear our friends and loved ones off this island is deeply rooted in its
political economy. Historically, Ireland's ruling class preferred to export the country's
young people - generally children other than their own - in order to preserve the status
quo. Department of Finance officials in the 1930s and 1950s used to praise emigration as a
means of keeping social expenditure low and acting as a 'safety valve' to prevent social
unrest, even revolution [3]. If the letter I got is anything to go by, much the same
laissez-faire ideology informs the thinking of today's Department of Social Protection.
When I think of my friends who've emigrated to far-flung corners of the world, I sometimes
think of the words of the Wobbly and song-writer, Joe Hill: 'Don't Mourn: Organize!'
We have a ruling class to fight and a whole wide world to win.
WORDS: Tom Murray
REFERENCES
[1] CSO population figures, 2011. Available at:
http://www.cso.ie/.../populationofeachprovincecountyandcity2.../
[2] CSO figures usefully compiled by Michael Taft, 2015, Notes from the Front. Available
at: http://notesonthefront.typepad.com/.../no-country-for-young-p...
[3] See Joe Lee, 1987, Ireland, 1912-85.
http://www.wsm.ie/c/education-emigration-ireland-2015
