‘The grass genuinely is greener’: New wave of emigrants finding lower costs abroad

Those who can make the move credit their new country of residence with lower rents, more bang for your buck, and generally better quality of life, while some countries have become a home away from home with Irish communities abroad consistently growing larger and larger.

Although official data recording the reasons why more people are leaving Ireland is not collected, that is not to say we can’t make an educated guess, said Dr Laura Bambrick, a social policy officer with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

“The latest CSO figures show that in the year to April 2022 just shy of 60,000 people (59,600) emigrated. This is a 10% rise on the previous year when 54,000 emigrated. So we do know more people are leaving Ireland,” she said.

However, Dr Bambrick noted that some 27,600 of those 59,600 were Irish nationals meaning, for more than half of those who left Ireland, it may be less about going to live abroad and more likely a case of returning to their home country.

“This is not to say that we can’t make an educated guess at why people, Irish and non-Irish nationals, are leaving such as the high cost of living here, the lack of affordable housing, career and education opportunities or travel.

“But we do know from the official figures that slightly more (28,900) Irish nationals returned to live in Ireland than went to live abroad last year, which might offer some crumbs of comfort for those waving goodbye at the airport,” she said.

‘The grass genuinely is greener’ 

For those who do opt to leave, it’s down to a mismatch between the cost of living and earnings, according to Nevin Economic Research Institute economist Ciarán Nugent. He said workers in Ireland are working for a lower standard of living when compared with elsewhere.

“There are better opportunities elsewhere. The grass genuinely is greener in a lot of places even though we have high household incomes and high average wages even,” he said.

“I foresee that the share of adult children living at home will continue to rise as it has done almost every year since 2012 and without a significant wage increase and/or a real significant tackling of housing, things will get worse,” he said.

Mr Nugent said, despite being most likely to have a third-level education than any other EU country, the share of those aged between 25 and 34 living in their parent’s home has doubled since 2012.

“In Europe, on average, that didn’t change but we doubled and we came from below the EU average to significantly above the EU average.

He said:

For those aged 18 to 35, we’re very similar to Spain and Italy, and 15 or 20 years ago, Spain and Italy were two countries that we might have criticised the amount of adults living with their parents as a clear indicator of an economy that’s not functioning very well.

Last year saw very strong employment growth, very strong wage growth and very strong GDP growth, “yet we have an increase in deprivation in which households cannot afford the basic costs of living,” he said.

“We have financial insecurity, we’ve got wages that don’t match housing costs which is why people are still living at home,” he said before adding “there needs to be more real efforts by the State to bring down the cost of housing for everybody.” 

Mr Nugent said a higher regulation of accommodation, and tackling vacant properties and short-term lets in cities are “low hanging fruit”, and would tackle housing in the short-term “with the stroke of a pen” which would stave off younger people from emigrating.

Irish arriving in Australia ‘non-stop’ 

Saorlaith Mullan who left East Cork to move to Australia said it would take a change in Government for her to consider returning home. The rent she pays is expensive for Australia, she said, adding that there is currently a rental crisis in Sydney, with costs rising significantly. 

Despite this, she pays about €860 per month on rent in a two-bed apartment which is a six-minute walk from Bondi Beach, an area which has a reputation for being expensive. She shares her apartment with a friend who is also from East Cork.

“It’s obviously incredibly difficult to be on the other side of the world away from family when you miss out on milestones but I just felt like there wasn’t much more I could progress in while I was working in Ireland.

“Australia has always been portrayed as somewhere with a lot more opportunities and It’s something that always attracted me,” she said.

Ms Mullan said that an online community group of Irish people living in Sydney has more than 100,000 members with multiple newly arrived members posting “every day” looking for friends and accommodation.

She said:

At the moment, you can see a huge influx of 23- or 24-year-olds that have just graduated from college and they’ve just moved here straight away. It’s non-stop. 

“Anywhere I go, or any job that I have here, there is always going to be at least one Irish person that I come across.

“I love Ireland, I love everything about the people and we’re definitely one of a kind in how we think and just how we go about our daily lives, but in comparison to the lifestyle here, it’s just not enough,” she said.

Ms Mullan said workers can earn enough “to be comfortable” in Australia while living in a nice place. “Things can be expensive but your wages typically will match that, compared to Ireland where it doesn’t match the cost of living,” she said.

In addition to the reduced cost and lifestyle available in Australia, she said Irish workers are in high demand there. Ms Mullan, who has worked across various disability services in Cork, also worked in disability services in Melbourne and Sydney.

She now works as a case manager in homelessness services. She said Irish people traditionally have a good work ethic, which is recognised by employers in Australia, making them highly sought after.

“Ireland has such a high standard of care that they provide to people which is amazing. Anywhere I went within the disability sector here, employers were dying to have any Irish person work there because we’re trained to a really high standard,” she said.

She said the strain on services at home, in which employees are forced to go above and beyond, also plays its part in making Irish workers attractive to employers.

She said the housing crisis and cost of living at home have turned her off from returning in the near future. “At the moment, I can’t see myself settling at home. Anyone I talk to portrays Ireland as very expensive and it’s not really attainable to get a mortgage or a well-paying job.

“I’d have to see a change in Government and I’d like to see the Irish Government looking after young people, they’re not doing that at all,” she said.

‘I wasn’t living really’ 

After graduating from college in 2008, Robert Walshe emigrated to Copenhagen, where he lived for five years before returning to Ireland. “It kind of bothered me at the time, where I was living was a small village where everyone knew your business and I enjoyed the freedom there,” he said.

Now 37, Mr Walshe, from Kilmacow in Kilkenny, has recently decided to leave again, this time heading to Finland.

“It’s a little bit sad to say but I consider myself lucky for the situation I was in that I had the option to live at home with my parents but it wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t fair on them and it wasn’t fair on me,” he said.

Mr Walshe who works in fitness, worked full-time and completed a master’s while also setting up a business. However despite this, he felt like he was “getting nowhere” while living at home.

“It was awkward for me in the sense that I felt like I was a burden on them,” he said adding: “You’re in your childhood bedroom thinking: ‘this is not my place’. I was lucky to have a job and I was lucky to have somewhere to stay but I wasn’t living really.” 

He said the difference between Finland and Ireland is like “chalk and cheese”.

“I think the Government is a major problem in that their ideology focuses on the private side. It’s chalk and cheese when you compare it to the Nordic countries where they focus on public service provision and the person,” he said.

Mr Walsh said some exaggerate and say that people expect everything for free. “We don’t, we just want to be given a fair chance and have the opportunity to have a decent life,” he said.

He said the wages available in Finland are much higher than in Ireland and, while taxes are higher, the wages meet them while healthcare costs are minimal.

“The apartment I have on my own is €460 per month, you wouldn’t get a room in Ireland for that, it would probably be one of those horrific ads you see sharing a bedroom for that amount,” he said.

Mr Walsh’s brother lives in New Zealand while his sister lives in England.

“We would have had a group of children all around the same age as us living on both sides and out of about 10, I’d say there’s two or three still at home, everyone else is now in different countries.”