The step-by-step plan for Ireland

As an EU citizen you don't have to register anywhere in Ireland: no immigration office, no municipality, no residence card — Ireland doesn't even have a population register like the Dutch BRP. After three months you do have to meet the EU conditions (working, or sufficient means plus health cover), but nobody checks that at a counter.

Sounds easy, and turns on its head: because there's no register, there's also no official proof that you live somewhere. Every body — the PPS counter, the bank, the healthcare service — therefore asks for proofs of address at most three months old, and as a newcomer you don't have those yet. That chicken-and-egg puzzle, and the official ways out of it, are the real system of this corridor. And remember: Ireland is not in Schengen — bring your passport or ID, even on a flight from Amsterdam.

Dublin is the jobs machine — the European headquarters of the tech sector — and at the same time the most expensive and tightest housing market in the country. Cork, Galway and Limerick offer city with a bit more air. The west — Kerry, Clare, Mayo — is the Ireland of the postcard: rugged, green, wet, and far from the jobs that can't be done remotely. The choice is sharper here than elsewhere: whoever comes for work almost certainly ends up in the Dublin region and has to cope with the rental market there; whoever comes on a pension or works remotely can head into the country and halve their housing costs. Make this choice before the housing search — it is the housing search.

The paperwork here is free — the PPS number costs nothing and a registration doesn't exist. The money is in the home (nationally on average € 1,755 for a new rental contract, Dublin well above that), in the crossing if the car comes along, and in the energy bill: Ireland has the most expensive electricity in the EU. Work it out with your own choices.

Ireland feels familiar — English, EU, an hour and a half's flight — and four things deserve an honest conversation. The rental market: this is the tightest in the EU, and the search can take months; whoever has no buffer for an expensive bridging period needs to know that. The climate: mild but wet, with a winter that's above all dark. The costs: groceries, healthcare without a card and above all electricity are above Dutch levels. And healthcare: the GP costs € 60 to € 80 per visit there without a card — though the S1 route solves that surprisingly well for pensioners. Also discuss who carries the income in the first months.

Choose below the date on which you want to be in Ireland. The step-by-step plan works out whether that's feasible with what still has to happen, and from that moment guards the clocks that exist: the seven days and thirty days around the car, the dog's 24-to-120-hour window, and the three-month shelf life of every proof of address.