Living in Europe? Why would you prefer to stay in Europe, not Ireland?

Several reasons
Weather
health service
standard of living / quality of life

How come you don't have an option 'Established network of friends' ... Good reason for living somewhere no ? :)

RIP OFF Ireland, no thank you. 60 euro to see the Doc, no thank you. Appalling public transport, no thanks... the list goes on...

I came home from Australia in October, and it was a culture shock. Everyone was depressed, ill, and obsessed with "the economic downturn". The bitching, backbiting, and minding other people's business was far worse than I remembered, and it depresed me too. All people seemed to care about was what sort of clothes other people were wearing,and the fact that "mary across the road got a fancy new car-how did they afford that......"
Ultimately, I left because I could not find work. I am a qualified hotel manager, and I found out that hotels are now taking un unqualified, and foreign workers, because they are cheaper. could not even find lower paid barwork, becaue of the greed of pub owners, not caring if the staff speak english, or understand the concept of "the craic", but because they work 60 hours a week, and are happy to be paid for 39.
it's all a bit sick. I was disgusted.the reason the countries economy is falling apart,is because all our euros are going to Poland, bulgaria,romania,hungary, among others. and it all comes down to the greed of the irish business owner.

The survey is quite superficial and the question is badly phrased.

Ireland is a part of Europe - not floating off in some imaginary other place. Let's not slip into the ignorant English habit of referring to Europe as some external entity.

Sorry to appear so negative - perhaps it goes with the mood of the nation?

Ru, Thanks for your comment, it is appreciated.

Europe in this context means Continental Europe, which is the theme of the entire EuropeanIrish.com website - for the Irish in Continental Europe.
For brevity for a title, "Irish in Europe" term is used to mean the same thing.

approx 70% of Irish people based in Europe have told us in a seperate survey, that they would rather not return to Ireland - and that was when Ireland was in the middle of the Celtic Tiger.
The reasons indicated are included in this survey - to see if the same reasons apply
Thanks

I've been in Germany for almost 20 years, and like Zoe Buckley, every time I come back to Ireland, I get depressed to see how narrow-minded people are. To my shame, I see the Irish are showing reprehensible racist tendencies, the "these foreigners are stealing our jobs"-mentality - although these same foreigners are usually doing the jobs the Irish refused to do, working in building, in nursing and care, and in the pubs. Fortunately, I wasn't treated like that here in Germany - not to mention all the family members who emigrated to the UK, Australia, etc down the years! I really don't feel I could go back to that petty-minded mentality where no one seems to do anything constructive - just moan and blame someone else, even though the recession, or the effects on Ireland, is completely home-made! Reading the pollster's comments, I realise that this reason did not come up in the last survey when Ireland was in the middle of the Celtic Tiger phase, as we needed the foreigners then to boost the economy. What a shame we didn't live up to our claim to being "flaithúil" when things took a turn for the worse again! It's time Ireland grew up as a nation and stopped looking to Europe to bail it out for its mismanagement.

Lack of a drink obsessed culture should be on the tick list to!
And lack of positivity in general.You asked for it Time for a Rant-

Ireland is about the only country in Eu where you actually get Social Status IE ( street cred) for getting out of it every weekend !!?

I mean what the F.. ? seriously- how many times have you heard at home "Oh your mans a ledgend-sure hes a Marter for the drink " or hes flat out on the pills or the charlie he spends eur300 a weekend, and worshipped for it?

Then you see the person there talking about and hes some Red faced bloated cider pig that looks like hes in danger of a heart attack any minute LOL

Ridiculous how did it get this way?, its no good for anybody, its a bad example to kids,people are suiciding from depression, yes granted its a fairly cold country but not a patch on scandinavia,
Theres a national acceptance you can throw your Aspirations dreams and health clean out the window once you hit teenage years,
were known as a drunken pasty ugly but harmless/likeable race throughout the world with absolutly no need, we are clever-posess immense people skills - loyal attitude- good morals- sociable acceptable to balck or white.
you dont hear the previous bad discription about Danes or Swedish and they suffer -15 all winter.

its time we fired out our Fat Lazy- self interested useless government and got in a young fit team to whip the nation into shape-

National pride-irish flags ( No i dont mean up the Ira,etc that attitude is unacceptable anymore, rebel songs in old irish pubs- fine but keep it off youtube and the steets) - Determined attitudes-promote Healthy eating- making drunkeness frowned upon.Im not talking about ridiculous semi commusim Australian style social control where they have bilboards with mildly plump people pictured asking "are you dangerously overweight?" No just a shove in the right direction.
Banning people writing on facebook "What a Weekend- Locked drunk fri sat and sun- 5 sleeps til we do it all again girls"
I have honestly seen that and worse!
The president should get on live tv and ask people are these sort of comments healthy or acceptable as a so called civalised nation? instead of ignoring them, I reckon sarkozy would kick in the door of your house if you wrote similar in france and rightly so.

It was a great country to grow up in i left at 24 and 5 years later woudl love to go back but the point above are why i could never be happy there.

having been all over europe recently i see the new teenagers in the mediterrainin countries are now getting out of their minds drunk in the same fashion- shame in countries where there was always such a healhty attitude to drink passed down thru generations.
So once again thank you american TV- Every teenage movie promotes gettign unconscious drunk beacuse it sells. it also influences- strongly.

Who knows : if paper monetary currency collapeses as is where its heading we might be back to stories around the fire every night like our granparents knew and maybe the cancer and greed will disappear with it.

Until then- saturday night here, party on wooooo! UP Mayo !

I would also like to re-inforce a comment made above my Zoe Buckley

Yes all our money is going to Eastern europe and still is but she is correct in saying that its the greed of irish Business that caused it,

After a recent week in germany i noticed and interesting and unusual trend- German people have jobs- They have all the jobs.
They Build Volkswagens, they make the ashtrays for the bmw,s they serve coffee- they sweep the streets- they take the money for your diesel at the counter.

Why? because they didnt stoop to employing cheaper immigrants- so what happened? The country stayed as it was and the wave of immagrants didnt come because there wasnt work for them and welfare handouts were made extremely difficult- it was the only nation i saw with armed guards patroling borders and checking Id etc.
So standard of life is very high in germany- skilled immagrants are still accepted but not waves of them.

coming off the boat from Uk into calais there were full families with backpacks looking dodgy around the doors of the boat and slipping ontop truck axles, soon as they get to UK - Boom - refugee status instantly , your own translator to help you get a house get a heating oil allowance get allowance for the 8 kids- allowance for a small car,
so Poor Uk you will be first to sink with 60 Million people and growing out of control due to "fresh mixed heritage baby explosio" the papers called it.
last year and work for 1/4 if your lucky- and mainly government sector work which means your taxing and getting back your own money anyway.clever.the rest are welfare to they get none of it back, maybe the odd tv liscense or parking meters
how long can it last with so much flowing out per week?

Was irelands building industry really that busy that we had to invite people in? why did it have to be all built here and now? couldnt the government work out that it was goign to end in a country with no natural resources- no manufacturing- a dim tourist industry-
did they care. Theres a term known as hedging that springs to mind, its employed by mining companies, it means you space out the work and the output over time and makes your prices stable to short term fluctuations.

If they had spaced out the work there woudl still be building work now-i dont
want ot sound racist here but lets be real about a large percentage-
we would not have a country full of immigrants that are there for an easy time and to send money home.Yes the irish did it in america and were doing it now in Australia but it IS different- these were genuine under poulated vast countries, there was sustainable jobs for everyone,

Europe is differnt- it is compact- every established EU country is at its own similar level- they are all small countries- They cannot compete on price very much- diesel has to be much the same price all over as a loaf of bread.
its long established- eg there not likely to be a gold rush or an oil find or suddenly to discover 10 million acres of untouched land we didnt knwo about already, This is what USA and OZ had and why nobody got upset with an influx

now we have a packed country , building a home on your own land as was an irish privaledge is near dead- were becoming another european suburb of apartments and close living, no washing your car out the back- paying for parking- no loud music cus your on top of each other.

For those that dont believe me the best comparisom i can give is why didnt germany bring in masses of people to build enough vw golfs for the next ten years? yes they could have- at the height of the boom 2007 there was an avergae waiting list for a new car of up to 1 year .

They didnt because they cared about sustainability and guess what they are still building golfs and are just catching up on schedule and will be building them for a long time to come and they didnt have to lay off thousands eithar. a quality product is always in demand and people shoudl have to wait for it.

The Irish are bitchy and backbitting. They have a lot in common with the UK that is when somone does well they love to pull them down. They hate to see others do well. It never fail to amaze me when people say the Irish are friendly pure bull. I'm irish and don't think we Irish are that friendly. The Irish are the Nigerians of the EU sucking up to them for this and that. Been living ouside Ireland for the pass four years, and never plan to come back. I don't even want my two kids to claim Irish citizneship through me. Half the time I'm ashamed to be Irish. Been back to see my parents and jesus it never stop raining for the two week's I was there. I thought I would go mad while there. Boy was glad to hit Dublin and get a flight out