Stay and do something or get the hell away?!

RichardAnd

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

I've spoken with my boss before about the money he needs to offer certain people (e.g. single parent with kids) to make it worth their while to come off the dole. Suffice to say, it's more than most people here earn.

Still, it's an improvement on what it was.
At least now, we can get Irish people to work for us.
We're a homegrown Irish IT company.
Were it not for the fact that we could get staff from the Romania/Hungary during the Celtic Tiger Pyramid, he would have had to move the company to the UK ages ago I reckon.

The really crazy thing above all else is the money public servants are STILL starting on.

People trying to get a job in the private sector are told they can do a year of unpaid work to get experience.
VS.
People starting a job in the public sector are starting on €32k, €35k etc in the middle of a depression!!!

This is about the average wage of the majority of people I graduated with from Computer Science 7 years ago earn, and public servants are still starting on that.


Things are simply never going to balance out this economy until they sort out the complete asymmetry between private and public sector in this country.

There's a recruitment embargo in the public sector and even int he boom, the average ps worker didn't start on that money.

Dannyboy83

RichardAnd wrote: »

There's a recruitment embargo in the public sector and even int he boom, the average ps worker didn't start on that money.

My cousin just started a teaching job on 32k.
(started at grade 3)

Here are examples of averages for teachers:
http://www.tui.ie/Salary_Scales/Default.286.html
http://www.asti.ie/pay-and-conditions/pay/salary-scale/

kraggy

tweedledee wrote: »

For anybody thinking of making the move,Canada is superb and vast followed by Down Unda.;)

Perhaps.

But unless you have a qualification and/or experience in a particular skill that is on their skills shortage list, you can't go there permanently.

Not Canada anyway. 1 year max. Unless you get sponsored. Which is very difficult.

Sleepy

RichardAnd wrote: »

There's a recruitment embargo in the public sector and even int he boom, the average ps worker didn't start on that money.

There are ways and means around it for some public bodies. Not all, and most areas would still argue that they need more staff.

That said, it's a ludicrous policy forced on the government by the PS Unions. Could we actually make redundancies where they exist, we'd be able to hire new staff where they're needed (e.g. welfare offices / front-line staff)

pog it

Sleepy wrote: »

People express opinions that Irish is worth saving but their actions declare otherwise tbh.

In my experience Gaelscoils are being selected for artificial advantages in the Leaving Cert and to avoid non-Irish children more than they are for a grá for the language.

Every census sees hundreds of thousands of Irish people claim to be fluent Irish speakers when they are barely conversant in the language.

TG4 has never had viewing numbers high enough to support itself (same argument could be leveled at the RTE stations but they could, in theory, support a leaner organisation on their advertising revenues). TG4 couldn't be sustained commercially without resorting to putting on more of it's most successful ratings grabbers: films in English with Irish subtitles or Sports coverage that the majority of viewers would rather have commentated in English.

We get our government to translate all official documents into Irish and no more than a handful of people request these documents in Irish. In one example I have professional experience of, the document has *never* been requested in Irish despite thousands being spent to get it translated.

The "grá" most Irish people declare for the language is little more than lip service in my experience. It makes them feel good to be seen to "have a relationship with" the language or to be thought of as "cultured" for taking an interest in a dead language. :rolleyese:

Getting back on topic: "stay and do something", to me, means: stay in Ireland and generate wealth here or lay the foundations for future growth. Anything else is just re-arranging the deck-chairs or, worse, actively detracting from our prospects of recovery.

I agree with you about the census and I know people who believe they are fluent in Irish just because they studied it up until Leaving Cert. And then you start a conversation with them , say about a film you saw, and they can't get past 'bhí sé go maith' and guess what, then they are into denial stage. They buy 'Gaelscéal' the Irish newspaper, bring it home, discover they can't understand any of the articles, and then of course they criticise the paper!

The census did change though this year. Instead of asking if you are fluent, it asked if you can speak it, and then asked how often you used it. So a marginal improvement as at the very least there is a huge difference between being fluent in a language and being able to speak it to some degree.

I'm sorry Sleepy but the Irish language deserves its offical recognition as a language of the EU and therefore it gets treated like all other official languages. Also I've mentioned elsewhere as regards costs, most costs pertaining to this work are actually to do with the drafting of the legislation, and not the translation. Furthermore most translation gets done out of Brussels and is paid for by the EU taxpayer, so really the amount the county councils spend may add up to a few cents per person a year- or way less. I'm just saying that it's really an insignificant sum. You really should be eyeing up the legal profession if you want to address waste of the taxpayer's money.

I agree- a lot of people who do respect the language won't go a bit extra and improve their skills and that is a shame. But it's better to have goodwill for the language than negativity. And just because there is a small minority of people who watch TG4 does not make it redundant. If these things were assessed on quality, RTE would be the first of the two to go.

pog it

RichardAnd wrote: »

In my opinion, education has nothing to do with one's intelligence. Virtually all that I know comes from my own interest in the world and my own private study. Education in IReland is about getting the paper work, knowlege comes from staying in and reading whilst one's peer waste time on frivolities.

Couldn't agree more .. everyone has the same teacher yet people come out with different results. I would dearly love to see the end of the huge amount of very average - poor teachers in the national schools though. It's one of the biggest disgraces in this country.

Take national school teachers knowledge of Irish for example. The trainee teachers do a few weeks of Irish in the training colleges, two weeks in the Gaeltacht on a specially formulated course, and one of my best friends who did this one year (and is fully fluent) said she almost cried when she saw the abysmal standard the other trainee teachers had in Irish. Is it any wonder that kids leave school with virtually no Irish? I was at a hen night and two of them were there. They spoke in Irish thinking they had some kind of fluency when it was utter rubbish Irish and they didn't even see the difference. Worrying. When I have kids they will not be taught by these idiots.

Sleepy

just because there is a small minority of people who watch TG4 does not make it redundant.

When is it redundant then? When no-on watches it?

We have a budget defecit in excess of €20 billion. I'm sorry, but nice-to-haves such as TG4 should be amongst the first things on the chopping board. It may "only" cost a few million a year but actually, looking at Wikipedia, it's most recent published budget was €35m of direct funding with a further €10m coming from RTÉ. Taking account of cut-backs we'll ignore the 10m from RTÉ. €35m would pay for 700 teachers / nurses / cops at a cost of employment of 50k per employee. Guess where I'd rather see that money spent?

I agree, the spend on legal advice should be investigated too. As should the money wasted on "social media gurus" and most of the governments PR and Advertising activities.

Right now, when analysing government spend we need to look at it from the very basic view that if it isn't an essential service (i.e. Health, Policing, Fire Service, Sanitation), doesn't save us money, make us money or develop resources which will do so in the future (Education, Research) it's budget needs to be cut to the bone or it needs to be scrapped.

Sleepy

pog it wrote: »

Couldn't agree more .. everyone has the same teacher yet people come out with different results. I would dearly love to see the end of the huge amount of very average - poor teachers in the national schools though. It's one of the biggest disgraces in this country.

Take national school teachers knowledge of Irish for example. The trainee teachers do a few weeks of Irish in the training colleges, two weeks in the Gaeltacht on a specially formulated course, and one of my best friends who did this one year (and is fully fluent) said she almost cried when she saw the abysmal standard the other trainee teachers had in Irish. Is it any wonder that kids leave school with virtually no Irish? I was at a hen night and two of them were there. They spoke in Irish thinking they had some kind of fluency when it was utter rubbish Irish and they didn't even see the difference. Worrying. When I have kids they will not be taught by these idiots.

I'd be far more worried on the numbers of those teachers that are unqualified to teach maths, but it's the same principle. It seems to me that every second person comes back from their year of travelling Australia with a desire to be a teacher these days.

pog it

Sleepy wrote: »

Right now, when analysing government spend we need to look at it from the very basic view that if it isn't an essential service (i.e. Health, Policing, Fire Service, Sanitation), doesn't save us money, make us money or develop resources which will do so in the future (Education, Research) it's budget needs to be cut to the bone or it needs to be scrapped.

Sorry but no. Why should anyone agree to cuts to Tg4 or Irish language supports, or the Arts, or community groups, etc. for the sake of deficit reduction when we are pumping our taxes into the banks? No way is that equitable. No f way.

pog it

Sleepy wrote: »

I'd be far more worried on the numbers of those teachers that are unqualified to teach maths, but it's the same principle. It seems to me that every second person comes back from their year of travelling Australia with a desire to be a teacher these days.

Yep, while I do have some sympathy for them I'll also be happy when they learn a lesson they should have already learned and realise that they are going to be in the same boat as most other professions in Ireland and struggling for work.

Sleepy

pog it wrote: »

Sorry but no. Why should anyone agree to cuts to Tg4 or Irish language supports, or the Arts, or community groups, etc. for the sake of deficit reduction when we are pumping our taxes into the banks? No way is that equitable. No f way.

Because whether we're pumping money into the banks or not (and I'd share your disagreement with the socialisation of private losses) we still need to reduce the deficit to zero. We cannot continue to mortgage our children's future because we can't manage our collective household budget.

HellFireClub

Peanut wrote: »

I see that there was a new micro-finance scheme for SMEs announced a few weeks ago. Whether this will turn into yet another morass of red tape is anyones guess. Still seems to be a lot of hope pinned on getting foreign investment in yet again.

http://www.deti.ie/press/2011/20110510d.htm

Yeah, they announced this last month, in the month of May as part of the "jobs initiative"... They plan to have a micro finance fund available to let small businesses start up, NEXT OCTOBER!!!

So to put figures on it, that announcement above is dated 10th May 2011. Say the scheme is launched on 1st October 2011 and that's the date you can apply for a micro loan.

So if you are on the dole, here's the MINIMUM the state is paying you between now and then:

May (2 weeks * 188 Euro/week): 376 Euro

June - October (16 weeks * 188 Euro/Week: 3,008 Euro

Obviously if you apply to the scheme, going by my experience with these folks, you are lucky to have your application assessed within 6 months.

So another 6 months, (24 weeks) on the dole, while your application is assessed and put before several committees and PS waffling shops: 4,512 Euro.

So it's now March 2012, the state has paid you 7,896 Euro in Social Welfare payments. If you get rent allowance, you can add I think it's 70 Euro a week * 42 weeks, (2,940 Euro) to that bill, which now brings it up to 10,836 Euro.

This was me last March 2011 looking for 2K, and since then I've probably cost the state at least 4 times that and it took 12 months to get a funding decision out of: (1) Dept of Enterprise Trade & Employment (couldn't make a decision in the end), (2) County Enterprise Board (could make a decision but hadn't a washer to lend/support and in any event couldn't lend to a start up that wasn't exporting or manufacturng an actual visible product), Dept of Social Protection, (funds cut, couldn't make a decision to save themselves).

So the long and the short of it is that if you are on the dole today and have rent allowance and you need 2K, you will cost the government 5 TIMES THAT AMOUNT, before you get a decision on a 2K micro finance loan application, which may or may not be granted to you in around 42 weeks time.

Sorry for ranting on about it, but it's on topic and I want the OP to get a vibe for the kind of insane carry on here that passes for progress...

HellFireClub

djpbarry wrote: »

So that EUR188 per week was absolutely no assistance to you at all?

The only conclusion I can come to after reading your responses to my thoughts on here is that in your mind, it is perfectly acceptable, in fact it seems to be something that you accept, for a person to be on the dole indefinitely.

I don't accept that any person should find themselves on the dole indefinitely, and in that regard I put a plan in place for myself after being unable to find work. You seem to be big into knocking things for the sake of knocking them, but when it comes to exploring answers and trying to identify simple practical solutions to simple practical problems, you seem to be a bit shy.

FreudianSlippers

I'm a working professional in Dublin and I'm considering leaving in the next few years.

The main reason for this is the persecution via tax of middle to higher income earners and, especially for me, the self-employed.
As much as it pains me to even consider it, I'm just fed up with the finger pointing and crying from the majority of people in this country. I can barely even stand to read this forum any more because people are so stuck in the past that they can't see the wood from the trees now.

I'm just fed up. What's done is done, we need to move on now and fix the problems not by placing the blame and taxing the shít out of the only people left spending money in this economy.

HellFireClub

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I'm a working professional in Dublin and I'm considering leaving in the next few years.

The main reason for this is the persecution via tax of middle to higher income earners and, especially for me, the self-employed.
As much as it pains me to even consider it, I'm just fed up with the finger pointing and crying from the majority of people in this country. I can barely even stand to read this forum any more because people are so stuck in the past that they can't see the wood from the trees now.

I'm just fed up. What's done is done, we need to move on now and fix the problems not by placing the blame and taxing the shít out of the only people left spending money in this economy.

People aren't stuck in the past. They are stuck in the present with retard type policy decisions that are designed to keep people unemployed. Grand what's done is done, we can't undo the past, I'm 100% behind you.

But what do you say when your government is doing the same stupid dumb fúcking things in terms of policy that have been going on for the last 10 years???

steve9859

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I'm a working professional in Dublin and I'm considering leaving in the next few years.

I dont mean to dismiss your plans at all, but why leave 'in the next few years', assuming that it means 3 years or 5 years or something along those lines (I am not sure what you mean by 'few'). It is a genuine question. if you mean to leave, why would you not go now before the opportunities are gone? I mentioned in an earlier post that the recent increase in irish professionals heading to London is noticeable, and it is getting harder to do anything for them when they ask for introductions etc. I have no doubt that the same dynamic exists in other professional sectors in other countries

djpbarry

HellFireClub wrote: »

The only conclusion I can come to after reading your responses to my thoughts on here is that in your mind, it is perfectly acceptable, in fact it seems to be something that you accept, for a person to be on the dole indefinitely.

I have absolutely no idea how you’ve formed that conclusion. What I am arguing is that, while state support for start-ups may be absent, that is not necessarily preventing an unemployed individual from using their initiative to get something off the ground. You yourself have proved this, as have others. I absolutely reject the idea that the organs of the state are attempting to “keep people down” by deliberately preventing the building of indigenous business – that’s the stuff of conspiracy theories.

At any rate, given the high rate of failure among start-ups, I’d be quite wary of a state-sponsored initiative to fund such enterprises, but I’d reserve judgement until the details of such an initiative were fleshed out. But, I would much rather see taxpayers’ money invested in helping taxpayers upskill (if necessary).

I think we’ll just agree to disagree at this point.

dan_d

djpbarry wrote: »

“Educated people” were never unemployed in the past? Are you serious?

No. I did not say that educated people were never unemployed in the past. What I said (or at least meant) is that educated people were never unemployed in these numbers before.

FreudianSlippers

steve9859 wrote: »

I dont mean to dismiss your plans at all, but why leave 'in the next few years', assuming that it means 3 years or 5 years or something along those lines (I am not sure what you mean by 'few'). It is a genuine question. if you mean to leave, why would you not go now before the opportunities are gone? I mentioned in an earlier post that the recent increase in irish professionals heading to London is noticeable, and it is getting harder to do anything for them when they ask for introductions etc. I have no doubt that the same dynamic exists in other professional sectors in other countries

It means the next 2-4 years and it is something I've considered. London is probably out of the market for me in all honesty. I couldn't abide by working in the city centre and having to like an hour away by train... especially when the money isn't that much better than what I make here (after you factor in costs of living and travel etc.)
But that being said it's not an impossibility.

I'm in no amazing rush to leave mainly because I don't want to leave. I have a job which I love, I'm just not getting paid enough and getting taxed too much for what I'm getting in return.

Unfortunately/fortunately (depending on my mood) my main option is the NW USA and Vancouver B.C. where I have provisional job offers in 2 years.
I'll be paying close attention to the state of the economy over the next 12 months... but I'm not happy that the only people with disposable income in this country to help get it back on its feet are being taxed to a point that they no longer have the disposable income to survive here long term and happy.

It might sound like middle-class problems, but I'm not happy. Yeah, I have enough to pay my bills and go out do dinner every now and then... but for my job and my age I should be earning three to four times what I currently make.

djpbarry

dan_d wrote: »

No. I did not say that educated people were never unemployed in the past. What I said (or at least meant) is that educated people were never unemployed in these numbers before.

In absolute numbers, perhaps, but people with third-level degrees (for example) are far less likely to be unemployed than those without. The most recent figures from the CSO (May 2010) showed that unemployment among graduates was only about 5%.

dan_d

djpbarry wrote: »

At any rate, given the high rate of failure among start-ups, I’d be quite wary of a state-sponsored initiative to fund such enterprises, but I’d reserve judgement until the details of such an initiative were fleshed out. But, I would much rather see taxpayers’ money invested in helping taxpayers upskill (if necessary).

I think we’ll just agree to disagree at this point.

By "upskill" do you mean re-train, or take a course and start a business kind of thing?

The thing is that while I agree wholeheartedly with the upskilling thing, it's a slightly tricky one. The current system could do with some huge improvements though. FAS should be offering language classes to those unemployed. They could replace the welding and basic Microsoft word with (for example) French and German classes at varying levels. The range of courses offered by FAS is....well, not very helpful to be honest.

The "tricky" part is the problem that I was referring to earlier about the number of educated people that are unemployed. A lot of those unemployed have a degree at the very least - many have a Masters or a PhD. It's probably a bit much to expect the state to fund another qualification for these people. I myself have a degree and want to do a Masters - there isn't funding available (well, there are a limited number of Masters courses that are subsidised, but it's a very limited number and none are what I want) to help with that. Which on one hand is fair enough - the state has funded me through all my education so far, it's a bit much to be expected to be funded to level 9 or 10 by the state too. But on the other hand, how are you supposed to afford "upskilling" when you've no income and the logical next step is a 10k euro Masters programme??

And at the end of all this, at some point people have to stop upskilling and go back to work. I could spend the next 4 years hopping from course to course through the system - it's not creating me an income and it doesn't generate tax for the Gov.

Dannyboy83

djpbarry wrote: »

In absolute numbers, perhaps, but people with third-level degrees (for example) are far less likely to be unemployed than those without. The most recent figures from the CSO (May 2010) showed that unemployment among graduates was only about 5%.

She has a good point tho.

During the Celtic Pyramid, unemployment was running at 4.5%
It was composed almost entirely of the dregs of society and the long term unemployed who had no interest in working.
Anyone who really wanted a job could get one - to the extent that we imported hundreds of thousands of people to fill the jobs.

Now, the ratio and makeup of the clientèle has completely changed compared to what it was before, to the point that the previous group are now just a minority.

When I started quoting my partner's right and the law back to the woman in the Social Welfare office, she started panicking, became aggressive with me and told me "Don't tell it to me - I'm just a footsoldier! Talk to a supervisor! I just collect the information!"

Amhran Nua

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Anyway OP, breakingnews.ie are running a poll, stating that 75% of Irish graduates are planning to emigrate.

Great, if this keeps up, in a couple of decades we'll be treated to the entertaining spectacle of the public sector trying to survive on taxes from fewer people than are actually employed by the government.

later12

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

but for my job and my age I should be earning three to four times what I currently make.

The problem with statements like this is that they mean nothing.

Wage differentials generally reflect interarea variations in the cost of living and the supply of services. Dispersion in real wages across international (and national) borders is generally a lot lower than dispersion in nominal wages.

In my role I would expect to be paid slightly higher if I were working in the City of London, whereas if I were in the same role with the same qualifications in a bank in Venzuela or Bolivia, I would expect to receive a much lower nominal wage.

Saying that you should be paid two or three times more than what you are paid on the basis of international comparisons means little - no job carries an inherent/ correct international value.

FreudianSlippers

later10 wrote: »

The problem with statements like this is that they mean nothing.

Wage differentials generally reflect interarea variations in the cost of living and the supply of services. Dispersion in real wages across international (and national) borders is generally a lot lower than dispersion in nominal wages.

In my role I would expect to be paid slightly higher if I were working in the City of London, whereas if I were in the same role with the same qualifications in a bank in Venzuela or Bolivia, I would expect to receive a much lower nominal wage.

Saying that you should be paid two or three times more than what you are paid on the basis of international comparisons means little - no job carries an inherent/ correct international value.

I've factored all this into play. Wages compared to cost of living I'm approximating a three time increase in take home pay.

dan_d

djpbarry wrote: »

In absolute numbers, perhaps, but people with third-level degrees (for example) are far less likely to be unemployed than those without. The most recent figures from the CSO (May 2010) showed that unemployment among graduates was only about 5%.

I'm not really referring to grads to be honest. Those figures are May 2010 - while they are valid, they seem to be based mostly on data collected from 2000 to 2008/2009/2010. I'm not sure how representative of real life that is.

It shows that unemployment among grads with a third level degree is about 5%. One wonders, however, does that data come from 2008/2009 graduates (it would have to really, since the data is may 2010 and there aren't any grads out yet in May 2010). I'd also imagine that the data is gathered based on the grads remaining in this country, ie if you have a class of 100, and 50 have emigrated, those stats are based on the remaining 50.

Taking the tables on pgs 2 -5 in that report, there are numbers there that should have rung major alarm bells over 2 years ago. There was a higher percentage of people with only higher secondary education than there were with degrees, or even post LC qualifications, yet we had a booming economy (table, pg 5). How was that possible with a (relatively speaking) "uneducated" or "lesser educated" workforce? There are consistently more females with higher level education than males, across the 10 years surveyed.

I don't understand why there is less unemployment among those with only higher second level education, than there is among those with Post LC education (Fig 6, pg3) for 2008 - 2010. That's an odd occurence. Surely you would expect it to be the other way around??

Anyway, this analysis of statistical data is completely derailing the thread. Point being that while there may be only approx 5% unemployment among grads, that not really relevant to what I was trying to say. And that is that a large portion of those that are currently filling the dole offices are educated to a higher level than secondary school, and/or have experience in private companies where they are (mostly) expected to work hard, perform well, be efficient, think outside the box, be analytical, etc,etc. And they are standing in front of SW officers who are barely polite - which costs nothing - who don't want to hear anything that might involve innovation or creative thinking and who fundamentally couldn't care less what's going on with you as long as you jump through the hoops so they can tick the necessary boxes on their piece of paper. It is, to quote a cliche, when you are at one of the most vulnerable times of your life and you find yourself dealing with a soul-destroying system that just doesn't care, no matter what it may preach to the media. And that's just to get 188eur a week out of it. Any more than that and you lose the will to live from trying to deal with them. The system is so broken at this stage that it just needs to be killed off completely and replaced with a totally different one.

HellFireClub

dan_d wrote: »

And they are standing in front of SW officers who are barely polite - which costs nothing - who don't want to hear anything that might involve innovation or creative thinking and who fundamentally couldn't care less what's going on with you as long as you jump through the hoops so they can tick the necessary boxes on their piece of paper. It is, to quote a cliche, when you are at one of the most vulnerable times of your life and you find yourself dealing with a soul-destroying system that just doesn't care, no matter what it may preach to the media. And that's just to get 188eur a week out of it. Any more than that and you lose the will to live from trying to deal with them. The system is so broken at this stage that it just needs to be killed off completely and replaced with a totally different one.

This was the big mistake I made of last year. I thought the "system" was capable of feedback as this was my genuine experience in relation to any workplace or business system that employed me. I thought that folks behind the desk would take feedback, that the manager of the unit would be able to hear from me my experiences that this whole thing was set up in a manner that just guaranteed that I would stay on the dole for ever.

And so up the chain of command I went, up through the complaints process until eventually I found myself at the ministers desk and then and only then did the penny drop as to why the whole process was one big stinking putrid protection scheme.

It is meant to keep people in jobs and keep a system of self preservation in place at all times, nobody rocks the boat, we have the Croke Park Deal, if we need to move 30 people working in this office block here to that office block there, we'll do it to keep 30 people in a cushy job, but if you think we are going to start taking on board private sector practices such as listening to the customer, modifying what we do to actually help people get off the dole as opposed to sneer at them once a month.

Dan, all the skills and talents that you learn in a private sector workplace such as taking ownership of customer problems, improving the workplace, thinking outside the box, working with other people to actually solve a problem as opposed to constantly being the problem, being flexible, all these things are like pure and utter allergies to the folks in the dole office.

Even at the ministers desk, the attitude is one of covering the arse, saying nothing, refusal to engage with or hear the problem, refusal to acknowledge that there even could be a problem...

saintsaltynuts

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

BOLLOX.

D1stant

Stay or Go? The choice is really an illusion. In the 50s and 80s people just went, and pretty soon the SW will be cut so much that the 'choice' will dissapear

If 400k people go it will go a long way to solving the budgetary problem

Thats the only way we ever solved one before. So yeah Go.

steve9859

D1stant wrote: »

Stay or Go? The choice is really an illusion. In the 50s and 80s people just went, and pretty soon the SW will be cut so much that the 'choice' will dissapear

If 400k people go it will go a long way to solving the budgetary problem

Thats the only way we ever solved one before. So yeah Go.

I advocate going, as it is every man/woman for themselves now.

But the benefit to Ireland of people leaving is not what it was in the 50s and 80s. Back then, people leaving was a handy release valve. But now, if too many people leave you have taxpayers and potential taxpayers (in the form of graduates) no longer contributing toward growing the economy and paying taxes to pay the interest payments on Ireland's debt. Ireland will have the same interest burden but fewer people to service it. So the release valve on the public finances of emigration doesn't really work any more