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Ireland, once an economic powerhouse of the European Union, is seeing a large increarse in emigration as a result of a downturn in their economy.
Over 3,000 people are leaving Ireland each month, the highest figure in over a hundred years. The number has more than doubled in the last two years.
Most emigrants are leaving for English speaking countries such as the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
According to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CS0), approximately 76,000 people left Ireland in the 12 months to April 2011; 40,000 of this number were Irish nationals.
However, the CSO said that the number of people coming to Ireland has also increased, despite the bad state of the economy.
Many of these were returning Irish nationals coming from countries such as Australia. However, a large number were immigrants coming from other European countries.
