THREE QUARTERS OF Ireland’s professional workforce would consider leaving Ireland in the next three years if the economic situation does not improve, according to a new survey.

Recruitment firm Hays Ireland said that of the 2,173 people it surveyed last month, two thirds were not confident that the economy would begin to improve in the coming three years.

Over a third of the respondents had already left Ireland in order to pursue other opportunities – or simply because they had no other option. 62 per cent of those emigrants said they enjoyed a better quality of lifestyle in their new countries.

27 per cent of those professionals had left for the UK, 22 per cent had gone elsewhere in Europe, and 15 per cent had departed for Australasia. Only 7 per cent had left for North America.

Of those still in Ireland, three in four would consider leaving the country if the climate did not improve.

Hays’ survey also found that construction workers had become even more pessimistic about the prospects of an economic recovery than they had been in the past.

Having conducted the same survey a year ago and finding that 69 per cent of construction workers were pessimistic about the sector’s prospects, 76 per cent felt that way this time around.

Only one in every twenty people surveyed felt that the economy would take an upturn in the next three years.

Would you consider leaving Ireland in the next three years?