Madam, – Along with thousands of other young Irish people, I have completed the trek back after Christmas to my new home in another country. Precious days spent with family and friends were fleeting and as I near my second year abroad due to the recession, I have begun to slip into that uneasy half world of the emigrant, drifting slightly further away from Irish society but still a foreigner abroad.
It is disheartening to learn that up to 120,000 Irish people will emigrate over 2010-2011 according to an ESRI report. Like many Irish people, I love to travel, but now I would like to come home.
I left for London in 2009 with assurances that the Irish economy would be back on track within a year or two, but I now realise that I will be here for much longer than that. Although similar, this is a different country. No amount of week-long visits, weekends at home and phone calls are the same as living in Ireland, going for drinks with friends, having dinner with my parents or hanging out with my sister.
Political change is promised for 2011 and I will return to vote, but I want real change in how we face economic difficulties. Factoring in emigration as a way to reduce our economic debt is insulting. It says that my generation is expendable. We are highly educated, travelled and hard working, not a noose around the neck of Ireland.
– Yours, etc,