Are people really emigrating due to the cost of living?

Seems like every other week an Irish newssite will do one of those "Emigrants Explain Why They Left" type pieces (the Irish Times especially seems to have a fetish for them) and its usually the same reasons given: high COL, housing, bad public services etc.

However, near invariably those same people will end up saying they moved to places like Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, London etc. all of which are exceptionally expensive places on par or exceeding anywhere in Ireland, with housing problems or bad public services like healthcare to boot.

So I'm curious to ask any of the emigrants reading am I missing something here? Surely cost of living is not the main factor driving you to leave?