To think that life seems better in rep of ireland?

[PunnyOliveTurtle]

ok...hear me out...My DM is Irish and she has not been home in a good few years, I haven't been over since I was 15, I'm early 40's now. So i decided to bring her over to visit her sisters as they are all getting older...late 60s/early 70's.

I had a wonderful time. I caught up with all of my cousins...and here is where I noticed the divide...they all have gorgeous homes and I mean stunning! Some in the country, some in the town, all fab new builds or gutted and updated old houses. A couple in new housing estates which were FAB!!
One of my cousins has just bought a new home...her DH is driving a 2025 car, they are off on hols next week. I asked her if she won the lotto and she laughed saying she wished, savings are now depleted and she was "broke". I know she has no credit cards because she metioned that she didn't have one when we wer talking about booking dinner somewhere and they wanted to take a deposit.

They all have great jobs...a lot of them are teachers...like i was. But they are no where near as stressed as I was. They are on holidays already and have been with a few weeks.Some are nurses but work part time in private hospitals, others work in big pharma companies, banking etc.Their dh's also have great jobs, engineers, managers in tech/pharma, one owns a construction company, one is a farmer.
All and I mean ALL of their DC who are of uni age are in university...no student loans. They have a grant scheme apparently. None of my cousins themselves have student loans...they are in 30's to mid 50's. (Can you tell we had an in depth discussion on uni and fees etc!)
Their DC aged 15+ all have summer jobs...in a local chippy, local cafe, one on a farm etc. My 18 yr old cant get a job at all!!

Everything just seemed so positive there...and im sure its not but I cant put my finger on it...it really got me.
I'm struggling most months...this trip was part on credit card. DD looking to start uni and i dont know how I'm going to help her... I know they say dont compare and I know there must be those struggling in Ireland too but there seemed to be A LOT more money being thrown around.

Agree. It's lively AF and has a good music, food and theatre scene. Absolutely not no-go at night. I grew up here, lived in the centre most of my 20s and early 30s. It can be salty and you can get unlucky but I've never been mugged, assaulted or threatened.

Been mugged, threatened with a knife and had a shooting of an innocent bystander on my street in london in past 18 months on the other hand.

That would be too much travelling for me in a day, but fair enough.

However it reminds me of being in Newry (NI, just over the border for those not familiar) about 15 years ago on Christmas Eve.

It was about 10am, place packed with people getting their last minute veg/other bits. In front of me at the till was a family from Cork who'd travelled up that morning to stock up on booze/treats. They'd spend thousands. I remember wondering how early they'd started and how that wasn't my idea of a great Christmas Eve, but they seemed very happy with life and their choices. 😂

Ah, now you’re calling me a liar. I’ve driven it for fun. A few times.

once to meet my sister who had travelled from England to Belfast for a wedding, so I took the opportunity to go up and meet her the day after it, for lunch and shopping

once to attend an afternoon showing of a play I really wanted to see

once to meet a group of friends who were on a weekend away there, but due to work commitments I could only do a day trip.

It’s doable. I’ve done it. It’s tiring, but worth it.

Good Lord are people really debating whether the quality of life in a country is due to access to food festivals??!

Yeah I think the 'Dublin is a no go at night' is a very overdone narrative. It's like Disneyland compared to bits of London.

It is not a competition.
I assume that you are living in England? My "UK city" sounds strange.

Indeed, there are a few no go streets with high rates of addiction problems but most of the city centre is safe.

Don't be so stupid.

Of course not.

Festivals were given as one example of how there is more to do in the UK.

@Tuxeda can’t see any of your points. The UK actually modelled their updated abortion on Irelands model.

Ireland has such a high standard of living people move all the time to various countries it do t mean no jobs available where they came from. My BIL in London has just bough an average 4 bed house costing £1.7M! And it needed modernising!

Cost of living is high in Ireland but so is the standard of living. Schools now have free books, lunches, children’s allowances regardless of earnings. As others have said access to third level is so attainable in Ireland and it is “easier” to get out of poverty cycles. I know several friends on €150k plus from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It seems to be a competition for the people on here who are getting extremely defensive about Ireland!

"My U.K. city" is not strange at all, it is the correct term.

I’m English with Irish parents. I think the Irish have one of the strongest work ethics in the world and that shows. The English have largely allowed themselves to become dependant on the state. My cousins all have the type of houses you describe but when we were children I remember they were actually quite poor. Ireland has done amazingly out of the EU.

I don't think that a lot of us are really from one country anymore. A lot of us have parents from different countries, and we all move around a lot.

Im sure its very nice in some parts of ROI .However every town /city has its downsides.Also without being funny ,your family sound like mine .Mostly MC jobs as Teachers /Nurses .These are still secure reasonably well paid jobs .Not everyone is qualified to this extent.We are here on SC .one of the most popular seaside towns there is .Beautiful houses overlooking the coast .Half a mile in there is shocking poverty .Its everywhere OP .There was a documentary recently with 150 people queuing for a house in Dublin!

How does it compare in terms of Sen support?

Would love to hear some examples xxx

What i dont like about ireland is it is very cliquey and class based in rural ireland.

I remember growing up in rural ireland, you knew who the wealthy families were. And you knew who the poor families were. Its a snobby and cruel society.

I knew that only children from the local rich families, were ever hired to be teachers in the local primary school.

I went back to visit my mother recently, who still lives there and i asked her who is teaching in that school now.

The daughters of the same local wealthy families are teachers in that school. There are no foreign teachers. Its the same crap.

Also i think that rich people in ireland live in a bubble and dont see the problems, because they dont go through it.

I was chatting to an irish man who's dad had a very high up job in Ireland. This irish man is a teacher. He was saying to me "oh its great that there arent really any problems in ireland" i said "but there is an extremely high rate of homelessness in ireland". He said "oh but no one really cares about that". True story

I think the big differences are that the Irish have a stronger work ethic. They produce more and reap more benefits. Talking of benefits - is there a NHS? Don’t believe so. What do they pay for health care? What about all the other state benefits we get? We have 20% of adults not working. Do they?

Yes, Ireland has a greater proportion going to “university” and I think have far fewer contributing very little. There’s an annual student contribution fee which could be €3000. However there’s not the breath of universities we have here and only Trinity College Dublin is a world top 100 university.

Of course Ireland benefitted from receipt of EU money and has a policy of low company tax so attracts many companies, not surprisingly. We tax companies far more so it’s not attractive to come here plus our power costs are ridiculously high.

The Irish economy is stronger but of course it’s a different life to here! No London. A world class cultural city. No Prem football. Less choice in more or less every aspect of art and culture. They have many great restaurants though! Before comparing material things only, I would look at your wider needs. What else do you value? For us it’s far more than house. There are also great jobs here but if you don’t value the brilliant things on offer here, I can see why Ireland appeals.

My local post office every morning says otherwise. 😅

It is probably because it is worth their while to work, with top ups, housing assistant payments stay in place etc.

I think you can apply for housing payments up to 36,000. You pay 10% of earnings to council and top up landlord, council still covers 70/80% while you earn 36 thousand.

It's mad and costing a fortune.

We've a lot of the problems that the UK have, 1000s of youngsters on disability benefit from age 16 onwards.

1000s of under 16's on disability payments.

No services to improve it.

1000's of on illness benefit.

1000's of International protection applicants unemployed.

1000s of PT workers claiming top-ups.

These are not counted in the low unemployment stats.

Is anyone else worried about the tariffs in America.

I see a lot of people already struggling to keep up.

I agree about the work ethic. I ve worked for several multinationals and it is often the Irish team that excel in bringing deals or projects to a close. Other nationalities do their part and then don't take on responsibility to knit the various departments or requirements together. Irish people might argue away in their office (or have cliques or gossip about each other), but as soon as something has to be done, they come together as a team to complete the task.

They keep trying, even if there is annoyance or strife, they keep regrouping to finalise tasks.

I think it's a combination of most people, 80% or so, being about 2 generations away from rural poverty, so having that survival work ethic drilled into them, and the enmeshment of Irish society, we might get annoyed but we are all part of the same club (GAA club culture or catholic parish). However I really think there has been a massive shift in the last 20 years, the younger generation are far more passive.

I think first or second generation migrants who had to start from scratch, will be more ambitious and prepared to really apply themselves to succeed in life.

My experience is that SEN supports are good at primary level and inadequate at 2ny.
SEN supports used to be based on diagnosis but now the school itself is able to decide more on allocation of support (according to need apparently). Many primary schools have asd classes/units now- however in secondary these spots often get taken by students with learning disabilities rather than ‘regular asd’ and those children often flounder in mainstream (personal experience with dc).
There are lower LC points for third level with a DARE application and I think in Trinity almost 10% of students would be in this category. (I could be making this up - perhaps others might know more?)
The PLC courses are amazing- €50 for the year and young people can access lots of support and then apply to university courses with a different pathway. I have been blown away with how good and encouraging they can be for young people with additional needs.

Of course we have the equivalent of the NHS. It’s called the HSE. And we have medical cards and GP cards for people on low incomes. So they get free healthcare or free GP visits.

I'm not speaking first hand here, but this is my colleague's story. In short, very mixed.

She moved back to Ireland from UK (she'd been in uk since she was 18) because her youngest child has Down's Syndrome.

Getting her child set up with the support services she needs has been a nightmare. There are long waiting lists, the processes are not easy to navigate. She's happy with provision now, but it took a long time to get there.

However, the reason why she decided to move back is because of the more open/accepting attitude towards disabled people in Ireland and for that reason, she still thinks she made the right decision.

I see far more disabled people being supported in employment in Ireland than I ever did in the uk. The culture is definitely more accepting and welcoming in general. I don't have personal experience to know if that's sufficient to make up the gaps in support in other ways.

She means is there free healthcare like the NHS.

The HSE is in no way like the NHS.

Healthcare is much cheaper in the UK

Well anyone can attend a public hospital as a public patient for free so it’s like the NHS in that respect. Except for the €100 A&E charge.

Cost of living is much higher too. And depends where you drive. Sure main artery’s are ok but the rural network is no better than the uk imo. And if you’ve ever driven down a boreen believe me it’s worse.

OP on the point you made about grants. It’s wrong. If your cousins are as financially comfortable as you’ve stated, they’re not entitled to a college grant as this is for low income families only. Where the confusion may have arisen is we don’t pay fees per se. In stead there’s a voluntary contribution of €3K a year which is waived if you’re in receipt of a grant. You still have other associated costs such as accomadation/books/ food which the grant aims to cover partially.

i definitely think there’s rise tinted glasss on. We have family in the UK and pros and cons to both countries. I just think you saw a small snapshot of daily life

There is free healthcare on the HSE, but it is means tested.

It's not like the US. If you can't afford insurance you will be seen and the standard of care for acute medicine will be good.

The way the system works is very different to the UK and some aspects work much better than others. For me, GP care has been great, maternity outstanding, but the referral to consultant process is a total shit show.