Stephen and Ciara Croke are packing their suitcases.

Reporter Tadgh Enright "Stephen and Ciara will board a plane to Australia next week. Their only income went when Stephen lost his job as a kitchen fitter in Limerick and now they are preparing for a new life with their baby in Perth."

Stephen Croke says "It wasn't overly hard to get a job over there so that would suggest things are better over there and we have some friends there who seem to love it."

Ciara Croke says "We've never even been away on our own on a holiday, we've always been with the family so it's going to be really hard. The way I'm thinking about it at the moment is that I'm looking forward to getting to Perth, I'm not looking forward to the goodbyes"

The couple are shown playing with their son Jack.

Reporter Tadgh Enright "They are giving it 2 years before deciding whether to stay for good. Baby Jack will do a lot of growing in that time."

John Croke, Stephen's father, says "At that age, there's going to be a lot of big changes in a short period of time, so you're going to miss that."

RTÉ Archive footage of young people at boarding gate for a flight and shots of an Aer Lingus plane in air just after take off.

Reporter Tadgh Enright, "To the generation that came of age in the 1980s, Ireland offered little hope and they left in their thousands. Twenty years on, travel agents report once again, a surge in one way bookings."

Edwina Shanahan from Visa First a migration service "There has been a very marked change in the type of person that is applying for the visas to Australia and to Canada in that their first and foremost intention of going abroad is to find work and to actually set up and stay for periods longer than one year"

Reporter Tadgh Enright at Dublin airport, "There is however, something different this time around. The economies to which our emigrants fled in the 80s were booming. But in this recession, there are few corners of the world that are untouched by the credit crunch."

Tadgh Enright, "In London, organisations such as the Tir Chonnail Gaels are thriving on a fresh wave of arrivals."

Recent emigrants Brian Corry from Co Westmeath and Martha O'Neill from Co Armagh at Tir Chonnail Gaels GAA club, in London, there are still jobs over here but here is a lot more competition also.

Reporter Tadgh Enright, "At the epicentre of the credit crunch, America, three and a half million jobs have been lost. The waves of unemployment are beginning to reach down under in Australia and New Zealand. But in Canada, where the banking system has been deemed the strongest in the world, things have held up better. This vast land, rich in natural resources, still wants a quarter of a million immigrants this year."

Patrick G Binns, Canadian Ambassador to Ireland says there are still opportunites in Canada as they have an ageing work force.

Tadgh Enright, "The recession at home is expected to last longer than abroad and that could mean emigration will rise further before it falls again."

Alan Barrett economist, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), says, "The fewer the people there are left in Ireland on for example the unemployment rolls there is a cost saving there for the government and for the tax payer. At one level if there isn't employment here it is perhaps preferable from a national economy point of view that people move on."

Stephen and Ciara Croke packing and Jack Croke playing. An Aer Lingus plane in air. Aerial view of Dublin bay.

Tadgh Enright, "Ireland's history is steeped in its lost generations. But at a time of affordable international travel, never has it been so easy to come home and if history does repeat itself, th

A report from RTÉ News on the rise of emigration first broadcast 19 February 2009

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