17,000 left Ireland last year

The latest set of CSO stats on emigration and immigration for the year up to April 06 has been released. There were an estimated 17,000 emigrants - interestingly reversing (though not by much) the downward trend of the last several years; the figure hit bottom last year at 16,600.

There were 87,000 immigrants – the highest recorded since the CSO began keeping track in 1987. About 20,000 of those were Irish nationals – Poles outnumbered returning emigrants however, with 22,900 immigrants.

• 4,400 emigrants went to Britain
• 2,800 went to the EU15
• 1,400 went to the US
• 1,100 went to the new EU states of the EU10 –some of these were likely returning emigrants from those countries.
• 7,300 went to the rest of the world.

See the full report on the CSO website.