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  3. The number of people emigrating from Ireland is currently estimated at 30,00

The number of people emigrating from Ireland is currently estimated at 30,00

游客2025-01-13  22
问题     The number of people emigrating from Ireland is currently estimated at 30,000 annually. There is no doubt that the bulk of young Irish emigrants end up in London. And while some of their problems are unique to this generation, many of them work in the same jobs and live in the same conditions as endless previous generations of emigrants to Britain.
    While some Irish take their degrees to London and use them to get jobs in the burgeoning service industry, for many others who left school in their teens and experienced months, if not years, of unemployment their second act on reaching London is to sign on for social welfare. Their first, and most difficult, is finding somewhere to live.
    Social welfare benefits, when they include a rent allowance, are better in England. For a young unemployed man or woman, living at home with little or no unemployment assistance in Ireland, this can seem an attractive proposition, offering independence, a subsistence income and at least the hope of a job in a city where unemployment, while real, is a lot lower than in Ireland. Many young Irish emigrants go straight on the dole when they arrive in England. Some find jobs fairly quickly, others remain on the dole for months.
    Andrew Fox is living on the dole, and is also in receipt of housing benefit. And he is living in relative comfort, as he’s staying in Conway House, the hostel for young Irish men run by the Catholic Church in Kilburn. This costs ￡50 a week for bed and breakfast, arid all the young men there spoke glowingly of the facilities it offers and the welcome they receive from staff. There was a 300 per cent increase in demand for places in this hostel in the first six months of last year.
    But those who get into Conway House are the lucky ones and there is a six month time limit on residence there. It has a capacity for just 300, a drop in the ocean, and thousands of young Irish emigrants live in squats across north London. The squats are empty houses, many of them owned by the local council. They may be being prepared for sale into the private sector. Sometimes the council boards up the windows or removes the stairs, and the electricity is usually cut off. The conditions vary widely in the squats, from those in houses which are in good condition and where the illegal tenants are painters and decorators and do the place up, to those in bad repair where the squatters live on mattresses on the floors in rooms lit only by candles. If they reconnect the electricity they face arrest and charges for stealing it.
    Loneliness as well as the need for practical help ensures that many Irish people stick together. One of the subjects discussed at a seminar on emigration in Kilburn was the trauma experienced by Irish emigrants, revealed in statistics which showed a disproportionately high number of Irish admissions to mental hospitals. One of the reasons for the sense of alienation was the sense of being foreigners in England and the hostility they experienced from many sections of the media and the police. Those who leave the country voluntarily are more likely to adapt well than those, in the majority, forced to do so out of economic necessity. Most of those who attended the seminar in Kilburn were in no doubt about the category they belonged to. "I love Ireland", says Andrew Fox. "I wouldn’t have left it, only there was no work there. " [br] The main problem in living in a squat is______.
选项 A、the lack of comfort
B、the danger of a fire
C、the violation of the law
D、the absence of security
答案 D
解析
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