111 is an easy number to remember. It's also the number of people leaving Ireland every 24 hours.
The after-effects of the Celtic Tiger's demise continue to rumble on with new figures this week showing that people are fleeing Ireland in record numbers.
At the same time, the figures from the Central Statistics Office also showed the amount of people moving to the country has also increased, this despite the economy's collapse.
While many of those who are returning are Irish people who have worked abroad in countries such as Australia, where one-year visas are common, Europeans are also continuing to move to Ireland.
Nevertheless, the figures show an average of more than 3,000 Irish people leaving the country each month, the highest figure since the 19th Century. The number of Irish emigrating has more than doubled in the past two years, with an average of 111 now departing every day, the statistics reveal.
The vast majority of emigrants are aged between 15 and 44 and most of them are heading to the English-speaking countries of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Very few can avail of legal access to the U.S. under current U.S. immigration laws.
While the number of people fleeing the recession brings emigration to an all-time high, the CSO's statisticians were quick to point out the population was smaller for most of the country's history and almost all emigrants would have been Irish. This means that the percentage of the Irish-born population leaving may have been higher in the past than it is right now.
Those living in Dublin are least likely to move abroad while people from the mid-east are most likely to go, the CSO said. Around 76,000 people left Ireland in the 12 months to April, including more than 40,000 Irish nationals. That compares with 27,700 Irish nationals in the previous 12 months.
The CSO calculated that 42,300 moved into the country in the 12 months to April but almost half of them were Irish returning home. Many of them appear to be coming from countries after their temporary visas expired, the CSO said.
A further 8,400 moved to the country from the UK and the rest of the pre-expansion EU, while 9,000 came from the new accession states. A further 7,900 came from the rest of the world.
