Young people are leaving Fermanagh in their droves – but what if it didn’t have to be that way?

What can Northern Ireland's politicians, civil institutions and private businesses do to stem Fermanagh’s ‘brain drain’/human capital flight?

Research suggests that it is not enough to simply fund more education and attract new jobs – a solution must be devised that rectifies the problem from the ground up, and the ‘answer’ of more or different jobs is not sufficient in itself to retain young, local people.

After all, Fermanagh certainly has many advantages, but a lot of those advantages are not deciding factors for young people.

Having beautiful lakes, unspoiled countryside and small towns may be attractive for retirees and families – but not to young people, who are eager for experiences and opportunities that may not be found here.

To at least partly address the brain drain issue, infrastructure must be improved, leisure activities expanded and the creation of highly-skilled jobs at home must be incentivised.

Sinn Féin MLA Áine Murphy says: “We must fight, in a highly-competitive market, to attract other jobs such as in technology and computing.”

Recently, whilst talking to several of my peers about our university choices, it became apparent that many of us – including myself – had not placed any Northern Irish universities as our choices.

The reasons ranged from things as insignificant as having better nightlife to the more serious point of avoiding adversarial politics involving religion.

The latter point came up a lot in conversations, it must be said.

Many young people simply said they were tired of trivial matters being held up by the same old, same old sectarian divisions here in the North.

The need for more resources also arose – with young people’s perception of this issue seemingly at odds with politicians’ views.

For example, on the one hand, Sinn Fein MLA Jemma Dolan says: “There is a very good working relationship between all political parties when it comes to fighting for resources and spending to come to Fermanagh.

“As far as I am concerned, there has always been a great cross-community spirit here.”

DUP MLA Deborah Erskine echoed those comments, saying: “Global companies are still investing in Northern Ireland and providing well-paid jobs.

“You only have to look at the expansion of TV and film production here. That would have never happened 40 years ago.”

But then, on the other hand, you might ask why do politicians have differing opinions with young people on this issue of availability or delivery of resources?

Just like roads or airports, internet access is a vitally important resource in 2022.

The largely rural aspect of Fermanagh makes it not fiscally feasible to give everyone lightning-fast internet, but Project Stratum – the national roll-out of better internet services – is trying to change that.

The project aims to better-connect rural Northern Ireland, because it is currently not commercially viable without subsidies for broadband providers to extend their services in Fermanagh.

On this, Mrs. Erskine says: “Since I came into [my] post, I have been speaking to the [Economic] Minister in terms of Project Stratum to ensure any premises which weren’t connected, were included [in the project’s plans].”

However, there is a mindset within Northern Ireland that Fermanagh is ‘out in the sticks’.

If there was an exciting opportunity for a high-tech or well-paid job in Enniskillen, many people in Belfast would likely turn it down because of the perception that Enniskillen is “too far away”.

Stormont seems to take an 'east of the Bann first' policy, and needs to reverse this.

Policies must be put in place that bring high-skilled jobs here – doing this would help people throw away their preconceptions about Fermanagh.

They will realise that the cost of housing here alone is a perfectly good reason to relocate, among many others.

To return to the issue of the views of young Fermanagh people looking at their future, there is a strong perception that the job market is stagnating.

No-one hears of any big brands that young people have a connection with setting up in Northern Ireland, let alone in County Fermanagh, unlike in the Republic, which has companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, to name but a few.

Let’s not beat around the bush – those companies are located there simply because of incentives and corporate attractiveness such as grants and tax breaks, among other reasons.

Fermanagh and Northern Ireland, however, simply don’t attract such heavy-hitters – at least, not remotely to the same degree.

The issue of trying to bring in new businesses – and bigger names – exercises politicians’ minds, with local representatives focused on attracting more companies and investment to our region.

Ms. Dolan says: “I am constantly lobbying Invest NI to spend more of its time and resources on Fermanagh.

“Fermanagh relies heavily on tourism and the agri-food sectors, and they have to be supported alongside trying to grow manufacturing and smaller technology companies.”

The Chair of the Council’s Committee for Regeneration and Community, Councillor Victor Warrington (UUP), says: “Most of the help that they [Invest NI] give is to companies in around the Belfast areas, and certainly around more urban areas.”

In 2015, Invest NI reports to district councils showed that in Belfast there was £3,696 invested per capita, compared to only £1,158 in the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area.

It could also be argued that Invest NI has no incentive to invest in companies in Fermanagh for many reasons, such as poor infrastructure.

Going back to a point made earlier, another factor that is a large spur for students to leave is the lack of universities. Northern Ireland has three universities, and many courses aren’t offered by them, or there may not be enough places.

It is for this reason that many medical courses, for example, require higher entry grades because of oversubscription.

This of course is a huge factor in human capital flight to the rest of Britain or the Republic, and students who leave Northern Ireland for university are far less likely to return home afterwards.

An element that has started to be considered more in Fermanagh is a stronger link between private companies and secondary schools – for example, Mannok, to name one such company.

Mannok has a partnership between several secondary schools as well as the Southwest College.

Human Resources manager for Mannok, Caroline McCaffrey, says: “[Mannok] as a big employer has a duty to develop skills in the local area.”

This is a mutually beneficial partnership that ensures that Mannok has a highly-skilled workforce to choose from in the local area, while also providing high-skilled jobs that will hopefully prevent many young people from leaving Fermanagh for employment.

Mrs. McCaffrey continued by saying: “The strategic partnerships benefit the school, the business, and the wider community. The focus is very much on developing appropriate skills which are relevant to industry and will position the students well for their future careers.

“For us, it is important to help foster the most relevant skills, with a view to building a skilled labour force for the area and beyond.”

A skilled labour force and opportunities with local companies and employers is, of course, very important to consider for young people.

Still, while Fermanagh is a great place to grow up, and we are not plagued by many of the problems experienced in more urban areas, Fermanagh for us young people feels stifling – there is no room to grow.

We don’t remember The Troubles, and we have a much easier time in separating church and state than older people.

It is for this reason that many of us display such disdain at the state of government and politics in this country, much of which seems to be at odds with what young people want.

As wonderful as Fermanagh is, many young people are attracted to what they believe is greener grass beyond – and until all the parties here stop focusing on point-scoring against each other, and start working on retaining young citizens and listening to what we want, the brain drain looks set to continue.