Ireland’s election: who can stop the exodus?

A man in a dark suit and stripped tie makes his way though a crowd of party faithful. Hundreds cheer and dozens leap in front of him to shake his hand.

You won’t know him, but he’s the Irishman all set to become Prime Minister of the UK’s nearest neighbour. His name is Enda Kenny. His party is Fine Gael.

In the midst of Ireland’s most severe reversal of economic fortune they’re about to take power.

Unusually for Ireland they may not even need coalition partners. It has been 24 years since Ireland has had a single party government.

Fine Gael has never formed a government on its own. No wonder the party’s cheering.

Emotions are running high in this election and Kenny’s success is built partly on the hurt and anger felt towards the out-going government.

To hear more about that pain we travelled north from Cork to rural Mayo in Mr Kenny’s constituency. Over the centuries here, the answer to poverty was emigration. That had stopped, but now people are leaving again. Last year alone over 27 thousand Irish nationals left for new horizons.

That’s up roughly 40 per cent on the year before. And there’s little sign of improvement.

Examples of previous the exodus are to be seen everywhere in this remote part of Ireland. Wrecks that were once family homes pepper the landscape.

The slate tiles, windows and paint on these cottages disappeared years ago – along with their owners. Now they just sit amid open country – seemingly unsold and abandoned.

Ireland: home to the elderly

Down a winding country road in Mayo lives Michael Swords. On Tuesday Michael’s daughter Sandra and her finance Ingo, moved to Spain in search of work.

Michael and his wife Breege don’t know if they’ll ever move back.

Sandra’s last text message – thanking her parents before she left – is almost too much to talk about. It read ‘thanks Mom and Dad 4 everything, were just on the plane’. Sitting in the kitchen of their Bungalow, Mr and Mrs Swords could barely bring themselves to read it.

“It tears your heart out” explains Breege, “because you feel a failure. You’re there to protect your children and to give them a future. And we didn’t. We left them to walk with no hope. Our children and generations to come have no hope at the moment”.

Michael says the same torment is being felt all over Ireland.

“You’re sitting in our kitchen today. And at the end of that corridor is an empty bedroom. Why? Because our country has been brought down to its knees. It’s not a political thing. It’s above politics now. They’re turning Ireland, and particularly the west of Ireland into and old folk’s home”.

Michael and Breege are constituents of Enda Kenny. Back at the rally we asked him what he would say to the parents of those left heartbroken when their children leave.

“I think it’s a scandal that the finances of our country have been run the way they were by incompetent government over the last ten years. Coming from the same county as that young woman I understand emigration.

“One hundred thousand have left over the last two years. And the projection is something similar for the next two years. These young people are our best asset. They will not come home unless they have something to come home to”.

Campaigning at a printing press Dublin we found the man who should be Mr Kenny’s main political rival; Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin. What would he say to Michael and Breege?

“Well it’s devastating for parents concerned and for the families concerned. And that has been one of the big challenges out of the economic crisis, which basically means jobs have to be a key pillar in our programme in this country.”

The main parties can sound a little similar; on the big economic issues there’s not a lot of room for manoeuvre.

Although Michael Martin is personally popular, his party oversaw the boom and the bust. They are deeply unpopular, even on the streets of Cork in Martin’s own constituency.

“I think they were misguided in the way they thought that everyone was just after a higher pay packet. I think they forgot that we are a county not a collection of individuals”, said one man walking to work in the rain. “They haven’t done a good job for the last 14 years or however many years they’ve been in government. So I don’t think that will change this election”, explained another constituent.

All kinds of people have taken to the streets in protest at Fianna Fail’s economic management. In Dublin a group of hotel workers were striking on Thursday over the pay cut they were forced into when the minimum wage was dropped. They now earn a euro an hour less than they did before.

Just up the road a familiar figure is defending his economic competence. Outside Government buildings; just yards from the entrance of the Finance Ministry, Gerry Adams is launching Sinn Fein’s political reform agenda.

“Sinn Fein didn’t create the mess”, he insists. “The others who accuse us of not being sound on the economy are the ones who created the mess. We know, and we have expertise to deal with the fundamentals of what is required. And that is that the economy should serve society, instead of what we had, of society serving the economy.”

But Sinn Fein’s chances of reaching the giddy heights of government are slim here. If Enda Kenny needs coalition partners he’ll most likely choose the Labour Party.

But whoever wins here on Friday will struggle to stop young Irish workers voting with their feet.