I am the said brother
Thank your for all your answers.
The main reasons we want to move in Ireland are for my partner to improve her english and to experience living in another country. Ireland seems the perfect fit for us as it is not too far from France and is still in the EU, which helps a lot. We plan to stay (if everything goes well) about 2-3 years.
That said, my partner doesnât want to start directly as a nurse with a language she doesnât know well. But she has a youth work diploma added to her being a nurse, therefore we were thinking she could work with children. That is one of our interrogations : how could she find a job with children, like a nanny, or au paire ?
Another question we had was about car : we currently live in Paris, so we donât need any, but it seems that we will need one in Ireland, given than we want to visit the country as well. But we donât know if we should buy one in France, and take it to Ireland, or should we buy one in Ireland, but sell it only 2-3 years later ? Or maybe a lease-option in Ireland, but we would be limited with the number of miles, so not that great for visiting.
About my job, I am an engineer and I already saw some opportunities on websites like Indeed.com. Is that a good way to find a job ? Are there other/better ones ?
I saw in the job ads that I needed a PPS number. Right, but it seems that in order to have a PPS number I first need to live in Ireland. I would have like to find a job before moving, is there a way ?
Whitehall Recruitment and Next Ventures seem OK for IT contracts, and may well have things in Ireland (IT) come up.
Lots of agencies also trawl Indeed - I get quite a lot of calls out of the blue with contract offers (usually not suitable ones, but thatâs another story).
LinkedIn is also used a lot by recruiters. In your specialty, David, I suspect you will be in good demand. @John_Scully probably knows everyone in Dublin you would need to know, to arrange something. Work papers IME are not a problem for sought-after skills in any country, such as you have. For nursing it would be great for your partner to be able to work as a nurse - I suspect other opportunities would pay a lot less and have even worse working conditions. Lots of Irish nurses used to come to London for better pay and opportunities (not sure if still the case).
Lastly a bit âoff the wallâ you may be able to access a magazine called âThe Ladyâ online (itâs on Pressreader and may be on other online magazine services - as well as being sold in hard copy in press shops in the UK). In its âsmall adsâ=petites annonces/offres dâemploi it has some slightly âpro-domesticâ type roles that can be really interesting, might suit her, many with very good families (some, for example, will turn out to be the families of famous industrialists when you meet them) or home PA setup, many offering live-in cottage or other accommodation with the job sometimes optional sometimes compulsory.
Choose carefully though and talk to previous holders of the roles as lots of money does not always mean lots of respect for employees especially in this sector - but there are some amazing opportunities that are in there if you read it regularly.
Iâm afraid I canât help as I only know Ireland as a visitor, but one initial handy port of call for you could be an Alliance Française (or similar), eg the one in Cork (Dublin is prohibitively expensive, but itâs your call), at this stage I mean as you donât know the country well etc.
You could try the French Honorary consulate in Cork, some are very helpful, others less so but itâs worth a try. An honorary consul is a volunteer, they often work alongside being an honorary consul so do bear with them, theyâre usually very busy people.
You could give these places a ring, or contact them via email, Facebook, Twitter etc.
There are other similar places you could contact, such as the French Institute in Galway (French Institute Galway, French classes, language and culture, Galway Ireland - About Us), they might be in a position to help you re the practicalities, the job situation, admin stuff, accommodation, healthcare, vehicle registration and so on. Their info should be up to date, correct and apply to your situation. If they canât help for whatever reason, at least they should be able to steer you in the right direction. Whatever info you can glean from such people, before youâre able to live there, could be invaluable, and they could be useful contacts for you once you live there.
I sometimes wonder if thatâs one of the reasons I feel so at home in France Tory. I havenât really felt at home in London since I was a kid nor Ireland probably ever, though I have many, many wonderful old friends there who Iâm in touch with all the time. It wasnât easy to be a new kid with a Streatham accent in an Irish school in the sixties, though it did toughen me up. I guess.
The Alliance Française in Dublin is excellent Fred but really only for cultural matters. The French Embassy in Dublin is (I hope you will forgive me for saying so) bloody useless, and has been for thirty years. A bunch of stuck up âdiplomatsâ who arenât interested in your average punter, be they French or Irish or whatever. I first experienced this on the birth of my daughter in Dublin and we had a grande bagarre to get little Jilly added to our Livret de Famille. Eventually, after several visits to their (then) palatial embassy the fonctionnaire scribbled it in and threw then livret back to me.
Next up, three years ago, ie 27 years later, I needed information on my daughter getting married in France. I pitched up at the front door of their new (much smaller) Embassy but ALL visitors have to go around to the âtradesmenâsâ entrance in the mews at the back of the building and queue up for an audience with a security guard behind a barred gate. Most of the people in the queue are non EU citizens trying to get a visa. The service is dreadful, in fact shameful. So, bottom line, IMO David should not rely on the French Embassy in Dublin unless heâs serious clout or is a relative of Manu Macron
The links you gave look good. I look forward to having a browse later.
What I have read, but not experienced with my own eyes, is that Dublin is horrendously expensive to live in and difficult to find reasonably priced housing. Public transport is reliant on the bus network as the rail system doesnât really cover the whole country. Public administration is slow and inefficient, and the healthcare system is severely underfunded and creaking at the seams. I have been told that getting a PPS can take quite a while.
Not necessarily, and thatâs why I indicate it as a possible port of call for info. I have experience of dozens of AF by the way, across about 10 countries. There are often helpful people there (not necessarily French) who may answer a phone call, give info, give pointers etc.
For instance, about 2 yrs ago, I went to the French consulate in Edinburgh with my wife, itâs moved to off the Royal Mile now, and next door is the French Institute, they have courses in French, organise French events etc. (very popular these courses, with the surge in people applying for French nationality or thinking of doing it, they have TCF courses - Test de Connaissance du Français -, for the citizenship application. Anyway, I asked to talk to someone from the French Institute, about the paperwork and the level of the French language test, they were all working but the secretary gave me an email contact address, I contacted one of the French people there and was able to find out lots about a number of things, I talked to s.o on the phone too, even after telling them that I wasnât interested in a language course at Edinburgh, way too far from our house. They didnât have to reply to me but two people did, thatâs what I mean.
But I didnât mention any French embassy in Dublin, I know what French embassies are like across the world, they donât deal with this sort of thing at all, I should know.
I mentioned perhaps contacting an honorary consul(ate) (the one in Cork for instance), very different, much more laidback. As I specified in my post, honorary consulates are run by a volunteer (the honorary consul) or by volunteers (again, not necessarily French, but always locals), and Iâve found the few Iâve used quite helpful, both for formal and informal stuff. If anything, they could certainly give David a few pointers or steer him in the right direction.
Thatâs true Fred, I guess I was venting my spleen But if one is in Dublin the Consulate in Cork wonât do much for for you, I suspect they"ll just refer you to the Embassy. I certainly wouldnât advocate moving to Cork to learn English, though Kerry or Donegal would be even worse.
Yes, my late wife and I first signed up for courses in the Dublin AF in in 1985, after we had lived in France. I dropped out (as usual) but she went on to do a BA in French and Spanish in Trinity, she loved linguistics. Over the years we popped into the AF regularly and would be well in tune with their events. My new (I donât know what the appropriate term is) wife attended courses there for three or four years before moving out here. When in town Iâd often meet her and her classmates for a coffee in the AF resto. As you say, itâs a good source of informal contacts.
⊠I should have added, the AF building in Dublin is now far more impressive than the Embassy
But David didnât say that he wanted to live in Dublin, he wrote that he wanted to move to Ireland, without specifying where. As I know Dublin, I know several people who lived and live there etc. I know itâs become very dear, thatâs why I mentioned Cork as an alternative (eg the one in Cork (Dublin is prohibitively expensive, but itâs your call), as well as Galway, but there are other places of course.
Yeah, the accent might be a problem, at least initially (then you adapt), but then again anywhere you go in Ireland or the UK the accent is different and can be challenging. If you think it was easy for me the first time I lived and worked in England and shared a townhouse near Barnsley (after studying in York)⊠. Blimey, it certainly was challenging, especially as I wasnât used at all to the Yorkshire accent and even less to the Barnsley/South Yorks variety⊠But I managed, you adapt, after a short while it wasnât much of a problem really, I saw it as a challenge! Iâm sure David would relish the challenge of understanding and picking up the Cork brogue!
I feel that the prohibitive Dublin rents would be more of a problem though. And after living in Paris, maybe a move to a quieter but still vibrant small city like Cork would be good idea.
Yes, when I responded to his email I pointed out the rent issue. Itâs a big problem. Probably âŹ2K PM for a modest apartment in a reasonable (ish) location.
As to Dublin vs the other âcitiesâ The south Dublin accent is, I think, recognised as one of the clearest English accents anywhere (or at least it used to be). I think learning English (as Davidâs partner wants to do) with a Cork accent could be a mistake. Not as big a mistake as Kerry or Donegal but still a mistake because many other English speakers will just not understand her. I barely understand some of them myself Plus given Davidâs skillset I suspect his job opportunities will be in Dublin. Ireland is really Dublin⊠and the rest. If Dublin is off the agenda probably somewhere like Kilkenny or Galway would be a reasonable alternative. My daughter spent six months as an intern in Kilkenny hospital and liked the town, though she was a frequent weekend visitor to the house we had in Dublin. Galwayâs a lively university town but Iâm not too sure how accommodation is over their either. Iâll check it out.
Yes, itâs the sort of rent I had in mind (charges comprises), similar to Paris like for like, if there is such a thing.
I must say, I only spent 48 hrs in Cork, in 1990, before taking the ferry to Roscoff I think it was, could have been St-Malo, canât remember where it arrived in Brittany.
As always when discussing places, itâd be useful to have a rough idea of the budget, a ballpark figure say, and what sort of flat people are after, size-wise etc. + the area.
Summer 1990, I stayed in Ireland for the best part of a month in August, I was lucky to have a friend in Dublin I could stay with (his parents had buggered off to their holiday home in the Med), and I met plenty of people there. I remember rents being dirt cheap compared to Paris. One of my mateâs friends had a nice enough large-ish room in a HMO (House of Multiple Occupation), a house share in other words, and he only paid ÂŁ10 a week! Iâm pretty sure it was in Dublin 6, Rathmines I think, pretty studenty, it was a pleasant area anyhow. 10 quid⊠Mind, he worked in a shoe shop off Grafton Street as a holiday job and he was on ÂŁ1 an hour⊠No minimum wage back then in Ireland I take it, like in the UK, people were ruthlessly exploited.
In 1996, I had a Yemeni neighbour in Sheffield who worked as a nighttime security guard and was paid ÂŁ1.50 an hour⊠I had 6th formers who were paid the same for pub work. When Labour won the GEs in 1997 and Tony Blair introduced the minimum wage in 1998, the Tories and the CBI leaders were up in arms about this new minimum wage, they were dead against it saying that it would âcost the UK hundreds of thousands of jobs in the short term and potentially millions, and that prices would rocket etc.â.
you have to ask Priti.
But if one is in Dublin the Consulate in Cork wonât do much for for you, I suspect they"ll just refer you to the Embassy. I certainly wouldnât advocate moving to Cork to learn English, though Kerry or Donegal would be even worse.
. Blimey, it certainly was challenging, especially as I wasnât used at all to the Yorkshire accent and even less to the Barnsley/South Yorks variety⊠But I managed, you adapt, after a short while it wasnât much of a problem really, I saw it as a challenge! Iâm sure David would relish the challenge of understanding and picking up the Cork brogue!
Plus given Davidâs skillset I suspect his job opportunities will be in Dublin. Ireland is really Dublin⊠and the rest. If Dublin is off the agenda probably somewhere like Kilkenny or Galway would be a reasonable alternative. My daughter spent six months as an intern in Kilkenny hospital and liked the town, though she was a frequent weekend visitor to the house we had in Dublin. Galwayâs a lively university town but Iâm not too sure how accommodation is over their either. Iâll check it out.