‘We rode out the recession in the sun, but it was time to come home’

Management consultant Róisín Ryan (37) “rode out the recession in the sun” in Melbourne for the past 10 years, but since her son Tom was born three years ago, she and her husband have been looking for opportunities to move back to Dublin, where they are both from.

"If you and your partner are Irish and all your family are back here, there is a very strong pull back home," she says. "A lot of my Irish friends in Australia have also moved back in the last 18 months, or are thinking about it. It is all about family, and where you want to call home at the end of the day, where you want to put down roots."

While holidaying in Ireland last summer, they decided to "test the market to see what the job opportunities were like". Before they flew back to Melbourne, her husband, who works in financial services, had a job offer.

“We told our workplaces we were leaving, and were back living in Ireland within six weeks. It all happened very quickly, but in hindsight, that was the right way to do it for us.”

Ryan, who worked for Grant Thornton in Melbourne, was offered a job in the company’s Dublin office, where she is now a director.

“Irish companies are now looking to get the experience from overseas where they haven’t been investing for the last eight to 10 years. They want to buy back the brains, the people who have had a lot of training and have progressed in their careers abroad.”

Having been a mentor with the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce's programme for young professionals in Melbourne, Ryan was keen to be involved with the Chamber's new Dublin chapter, which opens on Wednesday.

It will provide networking opportunities for the Australian business community in Ireland and for Irish people who have returned from working in Australia, as well as support for Irish companies interested in expanding into the Australian market.

“There will be more and more people like me moving back from Australia, and that’s the ideal way to develop business links between the two countries,” Ryan says. “It is a new business channel to bring business into Ireland, and back the other way.”