The Gathering?

So 2013 is to be the year of the gathering. Nice idea, but if it is really successful the island might sink under the weight of those with Irish blood. Here at home we have a sentimental attachment to those who have left our shores. It is a sort of romantic entanglement with the Flight of the Earls or the Wild Geese of folklore and history.

Ireland has been exporting people for hundreds and thousands of years, we did it before the Norman Invasions and we will continue to do it for millennia to come. Some fled the country in fear of their lives, some left to better themselves and some were transported for their crimes. I'm sure if I gave it a few more minutes, I could think of many more.

Fortunately, these days few leave to save their lives. The days of foreign occupation have passed. It has also been a while since we had a famine worth talking about. Since the foundation of the state almost 100 years ago we have had, suffered from, been blessed with, economic migration. You can take your pick as to how you view it. I believe it to be a blessing.

In the country with perhaps the most generous Social Welfare system in Europe, if not the world, people do not have to leave to live. People leave for a better life. We cannot begrudge them that. Given how few of them return, I suspect that the majority find a better life overseas and so it would seem, do their children and their children's children. So why do we consider emigration today to be such a tragedy?

The Irish love their history. I see myself as a bit of an exception, my interest in history lies in pre Christian Ireland. The stuff we weren't taught in school. The history we learned in school is largely written by those with an opinion and an agenda, archeology tends to have that objectivity that comes with extreme time scales. I try to read as widely as possible on the subject of modern history, or not at all. However, I see plenty of evidence of our cultural hang ups with emigration around me.

I did the leaving cert in 1976 and by the mid 80's I reckon half of those I knew who left school around that time had left the country. Even during the more prosperous 90's and 00's people emigrated in their droves. If we were anything special in the area of emigration the Americas and Oceania would be populated entirely by Irish descendants. People emigrate from everywhere. If it were any different we would all live in Africa, or Ireland would be totally overpopulated.

Embrace emigration, talent migrates to opportunity, or sinks into the obscurity of the Welfare Trap. Those who suffer from economic migration are those who are left behind. It is a kind of mini bereavement, but thanks to Michael O'Leary and Ryanair, the travel restrictions imposed by state owned airlines has been broken and it is increasingly easy to visit loved ones abroad.

It is funny how we Irish travel to find a new life, yet how we think a trip to visit family in Australia might result in death. It just goes to show how deeply rooted in antiquity our views on travel are. It is almost as if air travel, GPS and safety is only for emigrants. Family who follow to visit are still required to travel in leaky tall ships and run the risks associated with skippers who are he'll bent on a watery grave.

The other downside is the constant drain of talent from our own economy. This is the real tragedy because it represents a loss of potential. The potential of the emigrant, their skills, knowledge and the potential of their descendants to contribute to our economy. If we can't tap into this potential and keep it here, then we must embrace emigration and rejoice in the fact that Irish people are still valued overseas.

To maintain the cultural stigma and ignorance around emigration does nothing for our émigrés, we need to support them better and ensure that they settle into their new life. I used to say that emigrants were just people who couldn't hack it in their own country, but that was really in jest. The US of A didn't become the most powerful economy in the world because it was populated by the detritus of Europe and Africa.

Can you imagine what this country would be like if several hundred thousand people didn't leave our shores in the last five or six years? We would have boiled over into revolt like Greece and would be even deeper in debt than we are now. We would be unable to pay our public servants, welfare recipients and pensioners without drastic cuts. Our healthcare and education spending would be at a fraction of our current level. We would have genuine poverty and starvation.

Emigration is good for Ireland, but does this pressure valve not let our Public Servants off the hook on solving the underlying economic woes of the nation? I believe that we must make Ireland a better place to start a business. The majority of Irish taxpayers work in Irish owned businesses. Some figures suggest that less than 20% of Irish workers work for foreign owned businesses.

We need a positive intervention by government into public sector efforts to build our domestic economy. We need to make it easier to start a business and employ Irish people. We need to eliminate the red tape that tangles startup businesses. We need to do much more enterprise and much less bureaucracy.

Someone I mentioned this to said that lowering bureaucracy in banking didn't work. My view on this is that bureaucracy had nothing to do with it. The banks knew they would be protected and indemnified against wrong doing. With no penalty for getting it wrong, why would you bother doing it right? Lack of regulation was not the cause of the financial collapse, it was lack of accountability and consequence.

More to follow