Ireland needs the idealism, talent and ambition of its youth. If anyone has to emigrate, it should be the generation that caused this mess, writes DYLAN HASKINS
THERE IS little new that can be said about the issue of emigration in Ireland today by quoting numbers. The common perception that thousands of Irish people are leaving the country every month will not be substantiated until last Sunday’s census is published in 2012. But if we want to stop this trend and change the statistics, we need to talk about reasons to stay.
A few weeks ago, at a debate of the Trinity College Dublin Historical Society, I spoke against the motion that “this house would emigrate”. The students who thronged the chamber that night will have to make their own decisions when they graduate this summer. Almost all of those who spoke in favour of emigrating regarded it as a temporary measure until things begin to improve. The temporariness of this concept of emigration is more palatable than the historic notion, and is perhaps of some consolation to those who feel they have no choice but to leave.
For those who could stay, however, is emigration just an abdication of responsibility to an unidentified “someone else” to improve things? If our most talented and ambitious leave, who will be left to push for the crucial changes that need to happen in this country?
We can hardly trust the politicians who brought us to this unprecedented low, nor the disgraced business leaders who encouraged reckless and irresponsible behaviour. If a group showed up at a student party and started breaking furniture, you wouldn’t hand them the keys, leave the house and ask them to kindly clean up before you returned. You’d kick them out.
If anyone has to emigrate, it should be the generation that caused this mess: that would free up a few jobs for all those unemployed graduates. Now more than ever Ireland needs the idealism, talent and ambition of a younger generation.
The role of a young generation in reconstructing the country is not unprecedented in Ireland. In 1937, the year the Constitution of the new Irish Republic was written, construction began on Dublin airport. The modernist building designed by 27-year-old Desmond Fitzgerald and a team of young architects from the Office of Public Works is one of the most important pre-war buildings in Ireland, and when constructed it declared confidently that the country had stepped out of the bog and into modernity.
Nowadays the OPW would never entrust such a task to a team of under-30s. The current public-service recruitment moratorium prevents young people from having any role in the reformation of Ireland.
The situation is far more progressive in the UK, where the Civil Service Fast-Stream programme is ranked third in the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers, ahead of Google and Accenture. It is offering 500 new positions to graduates this year at a starting salary of £27,000 (a little more than €30,000). If we are to keep our most talented young people in Ireland, we need to provide similar opportunities, by offering senior administrative positions to young brains.
Grace Dyas, a 21-year-old theatre director, recently finished a second run of her award-winning play, Heroin, at the Axis Theatre in Ballymun in Dublin. The play was developed and written by Dyas in collaboration with communities in Fatima and Ballymun and has attracted new audiences to contemporary theatre because of the direct and emotional way in which it articulates their hurt, frustration and history, uniting it with a national consciousness.
Tonight at Project Arts Centre in Dublin, I Am a Homebird (It's Very Hard)concludes its week-long run. Written by 22-year-old Shaun Dunne, who also performs, it carries the tag line, "Shaun feels like he has to emigrate, but he really wants to stay." At a post-show discussion on Wednesday night, young audience members made contributions that were optimistic and determined.
The show’s director, 24-year-old Oonagh Murphy, decided to make a play about emigration when she found herself attending seven going-away parties within three weeks. Through the show, which is described as a conversation about emigration, Murphy wants to articulate that, contrary to what media coverage might lead you to believe, Ireland is not a hopeless wasteland.
Cultural output in Ireland right now is more exciting and wholesome than it has been in my lifetime. In my teenage years, my peers felt alienated by a culture focused on money and competitive materialism, but it was the only culture we had known and therefore seemed permanent. Along with other teenagers who felt the same, we created our own alternatives with an emphasis on community and co-operation.
It was a constant battle to find space in which to base our activities. It seemed every space we used was sold to speculators who closed the doors and erected planning notices. With the onset of the recession our culture began to change, and it became apparent that the status quo was not so static.
When you realise that nothing is permanent, you realise that everything can be changed.