Irish government expects more emigrants to return

More Irish citizens will be returning to the Emerald Isle by 2017 than the number that will be emigrating, according to the government.

Minister of Finance Michael Noonan said during the spring economic debate that “net outward migration” would come to an end next year and “inward migration” would return by 2017.

Noonan explained that the young people who had moved to pastures new were already returning, and that would continue to be the case because of the “jobs-rich recovery” currently being enjoyed in Ireland.

If the government’s forecast is correct, the two years ahead would see the end of a period of mass emigration in which hundreds of thousands of people have left the country, mainly in search of work.

From 2008 to 2014, 250,000 Irish people moved overseas, according to the Central Statistics Office, while 300,000 foreign nationals also departed.
But the net outward migration rate – the gap between how many people leave and how many arrive – has already started to narrow. In the year to April 2014, it dropped by 35 per cent to 21,400, according to the statistics agency.

That fall was a result of an eight per cent decline in the number of emigrants and an 8.4 per cent jump in the number of immigrants.

Noonan explained that planned cuts to the Universal Social Charge (USC) and income tax in the next five years would ensure people have a higher disposable income and help persuade young Irish people living and working abroad to return home in the belief they will find well paid jobs.