Irish join migrants in heading for ports
With the Irish construction industry on its knees, many of its companies are in a daily battle for survival.
No one knows this better than Damian Barnes, a 30-year-old roofer from Bangor in Northern Ireland. Barnes has been living in Dublin for a year, and like many of his friends, he now feels that there is little Ireland has to offer him career-wise.
“Canada and Australia are big pools for people in construction at the moment, but my heart is set on Australia,” he says.
The only thing keeping him here for the moment, says Barnes, are debts that he needs to clear. This coming autumn is the longest he is prepared to wait, and the visa is already bought and paid for.
“With work drying up in the construction industry, it opens up the question – do I stay and pay off my debt here or move away and try and pay off my debt from abroad?” he contemplates.
Recent reports by the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship show a sharp rise in Irish applications for the one-year Working Holiday Visa, and an increasing number of people are choosing to stay on. In November, Australian newspaper The Irish Echo published that 81,070 applications were made in 2008, and Australia’s immigration authorities expect this number to increase to 87,000 in 2009.
Barnes’ enthusiasm about his planned venture is plain to see as he lists out reams of success stories from friends who tried their luck down under.
One of the ways Barnes thinks he could make “phenomenal money” is by working in the mining industry. Though he admits such work is “slightly dangerous”, he says that with “the drive and the focus to work hard, and a boss who likes you, you can earn a lot of money.”
Looking around the job market in Ireland, he adds: “Here, that option doesn’t exist.
“My move is very easily facilitated because I have family [in Australia] and living in a hotter climate is something I’d like to experience. They have a much better work-life balance.
“Ireland is expensive for the quality of life you have here,” he notes, and reckons that “happiness breeds in sunshine”.
But work is not the only thing that is prompting him to leave. Barnes claims that sooner or later he would find work, especially in his hometown, but there is no appeal in the thought of moving back to Bangor.
He admits that the travel bug is getting the better of him, and the idea of surfing in the morning before going to work is a dream he would like to see come true, even though he’s never been on a surfboard.
