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In Australia rents are high, costs are rising. Can it remain a mecca for Irish emigrants?

The Irish are conspicuously successful in Australia, but if recession and higher unemployment are on the horizon, could this well-trodden pathway become blocked?

Glebe Markets in Sydney. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty
Billy Cantwell
Sun Sept 01 2024 - 01:00

Zach Tuohy has decided to retire from footy – big news in Melbourne, and in Laois. The popular Portlaoise-man, who plays Aussie rules with the Geelong Cats in Victoria (along with team-mates Mark O’Connor from Kerry and Oisín Mullin from Mayo) has been getting plenty of mainstream media coverage ahead of his imminent retirement from the AFL.

But Tuohy’s Irishness is not the novelty it once was in Australia. Irish AFL players, male and female, are no longer the exotic beasts they were in the days of the late, great Jim Stynes. Their presence has been normalised, as it has in many other fields. The Irish are conspicuous, but they’re also conspicuously successful, in Australia.

The CSO’s report this week, which revealed that 10,600 people moved to Australia from Ireland in the 12 months leading up to April 2024, an increase of 126 per cent from the year prior, confirmed what those of us living and working in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth already knew. Nurses and teachers with Irish accents, for example, are not hard to find.

My youngest arrived home from school recently and was pleased to announce that at least five of the teachers could now pronounce his tricky Irish name, Oisín, perfectly. No wonder Ireland’s teacher unions are sounding the alarm.

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Australia has also benefited from Ireland’s inability to hold on to its medics. Go to any emergency room in a major hospital in a big city here, and you will encounter Irish nurses and doctors who tend to find that their Australian pay and working conditions – not to mention quality of life – compare favourably with what they can expect back home.

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The enduring appeal of Australia for Irish emigrants is no mystery. The weather’s nice. It’s English-speaking. It’s relatively safe. The weather’s nice. It’s a well-trodden path. There are avenues to residency, and then to citizenship. There’s a cultural familiarity. And, yes, the weather’s nice.

But there is a ferocity to the current exodus to Australia that can’t only be explained by the promise of sunshine. Something else is going on. Sydney migration agent Fred Molloy, a Dubliner, helps many Irish applicants through the labyrinthine and often expensive visa process. He has noticed a shift since the pandemic with many more young Irish arriving on working-holiday visas. These visas, which are available to 18-35-year-olds, include limited work rights but are often used as a stepping stone to sponsorship and residency.

According to the Australian Department of Home Affairs, a record 21,525 working holiday visas were granted to Irish citizens between July 1st, 2022 and June 30th, 2023, which is more than double the previous year, when 10,491 were allocated. At the peak of the Irish recession in 2008, the number was 12,847.

Backpackers aside, a higher proportion of new and recent arrivals are interested in a more permanent move, says Molloy. “Many Irish migrants are now seeking to establish long-term careers,” he says. Relocating to Australia is more of “a lifestyle choice rather than a temporary travel adventure.”

However, Australia’s economy is not strong. Cost-of-living pressures and high interest rates have contributed to a sharp slowdown in economic growth. Some are predicting a recession.

As in Dublin, renting property is expensive and the vacancy rate is low. Sydney remains the most expensive capital city in which to rent a house, with a median weekly asking price of $750 (€457), or €1,980 per month, up 7 per cent on the previous year. Melbourne ($580/€356), Brisbane ($630/€387) and Perth ($650/€399) are more affordable options. House prices are up 11.1 per cent over the past year. The cost-of-living, or “cossie livs” as its been dubbed by the Aussie TikTok generation, has soared and is biting.

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But the jobs market has held up well so far, and the unemployment rate is still low at 4.2 per cent. There are vacancies that cannot be filled domestically, and many employers are hungry for migrant recruits. This presents a particular opportunity for Irish arrivals. “There is a real appetite from Australian employers for Irish workers, who are generally highly skilled and have a reputation for ‘work hard, play hard’,” says Molloy. The demand is particularly strong in sectors such as construction, trades, engineering, healthcare and education, he says.

Dubliner Evie McCullough doesn’t work in any of those fields but she is in a job she loves and is happily ensconced in Sydney. The 29-year-old communications professional, who arrived in Australia in April 2023, is part of the new wave. She thinks the pandemic, Ireland’s increasingly expensive property market and career ambition have all played a role in the recent exodus. “There are lots of push factors,” says McCullough. “But it’s clear from conversations with friends that pull factors played a more important role in decisions to leave.” She cites “opportunities, better wages, better job prospects, better lifestyle and more sunshine”.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from 2016-2017 show workers born in Ireland recorded the highest median employee income of all compared with skilled immigrants from other countries. While the median income was $59,304 (about €36,000) for all skilled migrants, Irish workers earned a remarkable median of $82,865 (€50,500). There’s nothing to suggest that this trend has not continued.

I’ve been here just about long enough to have lived through the last Australian recession. That was in 1991 and the jobless rate jumped to 10 per cent. Higher unemployment may disrupt pathways for would-be Irish migrants, but as it stands, Australia still feels like a land of opportunity. And the weather’s nice.

Billy Cantwell is deputy opinion editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. He was the founding editor of Australia’s Irish newspaper, The Irish Echo.