Una Mullally: No country for young men and women – why young people leave Ireland

How do you feel when you walk into a room and there's no one like you in it? Maybe you're a black person in a room full of white people, or a woman in a room full of men, or an older person in a room full of teenagers. It can be off-putting. It makes you self-conscious. These are not your people. I wonder if it feels a little bit like that being twentysomething in Ireland.

Right now, there are 205,150 fewer twentysomethings in Ireland than there were six years ago. That’s 27.2 per cent of the twentysomething population. For those between the ages of 20 and 24, the reduction of that demographic is bigger still, a 31 per cent decrease in six years. In 2009, there were 180,900 women between the ages of 20 and 24 in Ireland. Last year there were 104,600, a decrease in population of 34 per cent.

People talk about how depressed small towns and villages become when the young people leave. But the conversation about national emigration hasn’t moved beyond “isn’t it terrible”. We aren’t examining the impact the decimation of Ireland’s twentysomething population is having. Seeing such a monumental drop in that age group in such a small country has a very real, daily impact. It sucks a huge chunk of creativity and fun out of the place. Do you wonder why they’re not staying when things are apparently “picking up”?

Maybe when other twentysomethings are leaving college and they survey the scene, it’s not just about jobs. It’s like that woman in a room full of men or that black person in a room full of white people realising there aren’t many people like them doing what they want to do. So they leave for a place where that’s happening.

It’s become difficult to talk frankly about emigration without offending.

The recession brought with it an incredible amount of pain and personal suffering, and so the language and reactions around it become instantly loaded and emotionally heightened.

Any narrative about emigration that doesn’t walk the line of what we like to think – the jobless youngsters tossed out by the big bad Government who failed them – is the equivalent of donning blackface. No matter how you go about it, you’re losing from the get-go. But it can’t be ignored (especially given a third of people who left Ireland recently were in employment) that the reasons for emigration are more abstract than giz-a-job.

Future potential

We’re not just haemorrhaging young people right now, we’re losing their future potential, and their idea of what opportunity is, which is being explored elsewhere. And with fewer twentysomethings to contribute to an Irish society in which they’d be interested in living, we’re left fumbling in the dark. How can we build a country for young people when they’re not here to guide that construction?

For those who stay, youth unemployment floats at above 20 per cent, double the national unemployment rate. In fact, the similarity is eerie between the number of people unemployed in Ireland – about 210,000 – and the number of twentysomethings who have left. Imagine what youth unemployment would be if they were still here. Politicians might pay lip service to the devastation of emigration, but the fact is, it means fewer young people on the scratcher, fewer young people likely to vote against the status quo, fewer young people on the streets. Because as well as the abstract reasons people emigrate, the involvement of young people in society is also big-picture stuff.

Young people tend to eschew the parochialism of their parents when it comes to politics and instead focus on issues that have meaning to them. Anyone who thought young people were apathetic got a wake-up call with the marriage referendum, a social movement led by the people power of young people at every juncture. Just because a 21-year-old isn’t ringing their TD about bins and roadworks, doesn’t mean they don’t know their politics. Ireland has scattered to the point that one in six Irish-born people is now living abroad. Our very idea of nationhood is becoming more abstract. We don’t look back to base to figure out who we are or where we belong: we look to each other. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we need to create something that looks like a place young people might feel a part of.

Election

The next general election is an opportunity to do this. Young people have to run for election, and other young people need to support them. When it comes to real change and real vitality, the parties are irrelevant. Their popularity is minimal to the point that not being attached to a party is a better brand.

So think about that: if you, as a young person, stand for election outside of the traditional political parties, you are already more popular in the public’s eyes than party candidates. So do it.

This next election will be fascinating. Don’t listen to the conservative commentators and the politicians arrogantly assuming how they’ll make up the next government. Anything could happen.

But in order for twentysomethings to stop the rot, they need to get involved. Unfortunately, no one is going to build a better Ireland for you. You need to do it yourself.