FIGURES PUBLISHED BY the Department of the Taoiseach have revealed a very obvious pattern when it comes to Irish people taking the well-worn path to the UK to live and work.

Minister of State Paul Kehoe provided the most recent estimates of the number of emigrants to Britain from Ireland since 1987 to TD Joanna Tuffy in a written Dáil answer earlier this week.

The data showed how emigration increased drastically during the tough economic conditions of the late 1980s before dipping in the 1990s and falling significantly in the new millenium.

Over the past three years, the numbers have started to jump again on account of the recession.

Here are the figures:

1987 – 21,800

1988 – 40,200

1989 – 48,400

1990 – 35,800

1991 – 23,000

1992 – 16,900

1993 – 16,400

1994 – 14,800

1995 –  13,300

1996 – 14,100

1997 – 11,600

1998 – 11,800

1999 – 11,200

2000 – 7,200

2001 – 7,800

2002 – 7,400

2003 – 8,600

2004 – 7,100

2005 – 7,900

2006 – 8,800

2007 – 10,100

2008 – 7,000

2009 – 11,900

2010 – 14,400

2011 – 18,900

These figures may change slightly as more detailed results become available through Census of 2011 information. That data will be published in September.

Coming home: almost 20,000 Irish people returned before Census>