Daft Property - Irish Property News

Surge in emigration as economic downturn takes toll... THE NUMBER of people moving to live in Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Britain over the past year has increased sharply, reflecting a major surge in emigration due to the recession. New figures show Irish citizens have received 21 per cent more long-term resident visas for Australia, 49 per cent more New Zealand resident visas and 33 per cent more US immigrant visas. There has also been a 100 per cent increase in the number of Canadian work permits issued to Irish people and a significant increase in the number of similar visas issued for Australia. The number of people moving to Britain has risen by 2 per cent in 2010, which amounts to just under 1,000 Irish people moving to Britain every month to live. The figures from five of the most popular destinations for Irish emigrants are in line with recent data from Central Statistics Office, showing 65,300 people emigrated in the year to April 2010, the highest number leavin...

Big move is abroad as market stagnates... MASS EMIGRATION may be an unwelcome throwback to the past for many Irish people but for the removals industry the growing exodus of workers to far-flung destinations means business is booming once again. Some of the sector’s largest firms are reporting dramatic increases in the numbers of people moving lock, stock and barrel to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. Most of these migrants are families who have cut their losses on property at home or are renting out their homes in the expectation of a return in three to five years’ time. Last month, a report from the EU Commission showed more people were leaving Ireland than anywhere else in the European Union and commentators attributed these rising emigration levels to departing non-nationals and young Irish males in search of better job prospects. But according to Eamonn Finn, of Allen Removals, the “overwhelming majority of clients are Irish families who have decided to move overseas per...

The Republic's budget targets remain on track despite the country being €10bn in the red, the Government said last night. Latest exchequer figures show €17.2bn taxes were collected in the first seven months of the year - 1.4% or €247m below target. Separate figures revealed the Irish economy shrunk 7.6% last year. Fine Gael claimed the country had suffered the longest and deepest recession of any advanced economy in the world. Richard Bruton, enterprise spokesman, said the rate of economic decline was five times worse than the average fall suffered by advanced countries. "Despite all the evidence and the conclusions of the recent banking reports, some Government ministers continue to pretend that Ireland's problems were caused by outside forces, when the truth is that Ireland and its people have been the victims of catastrophic economic mismanagement," Mr Bruton said. The exchequer deficit at the end of July was €10.2bn, down from the €16.4bn recorded at the same per...

5,000 will leave each month over job crisis... 120,000 to emigrate by end of next year, ESRI predicts: MORE than 120,000 people -- or 5,000 a month -- will emigrate by the end of next year to escape unemployment at home, the State's economic think tank warns in its latest report. That means the equivalent population of Cork city will leave over the next 18 months. The figure is 20,000 more than the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) estimated in its last report, just three months ago. Jean Goggin, a co-author of the report, said: "It's quite significant -- we expect 70,000 to leave in 2010 and a further 50,000 in 2011." Unlike last year, most of these emigrants will be Irish, the figures suggest. Many foreign workers -- mostly in construction and retailing -- whose jobs disappeared have already left the country. "In the two years 2008 and 2009, the number of non-nationals employed in Ireland fell by 87,500," the report says. "The biggest adju...