The step-by-step plan for Ireland

In this step you learn why everything in Ireland turns on proof of address. It sets the order of your whole move.

As an EU citizen you don't have to register anywhere in Ireland. There's no immigration office, no municipality and no residence card. Ireland doesn't even have a population register like the Dutch BRP (the Personal Records Database, where your municipality records where you live). After three months you do have to meet the EU conditions: you work, or you have sufficient means plus health cover. Nobody checks that at a counter.

That sounds easy, but it turns on its head. Because there's no register, there's also no official proof that you live somewhere. So every body asks for proofs of address at most three months old: bills or official post in your name, at your address. That goes for the PPS counter (where you get your PPS number, the Irish citizen service number), for the bank and for the healthcare service. 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 journey. You'll meet them later in the plan.

One more thing: Ireland is not in Schengen, the European area without passport checks at the border. So bring your passport or ID card, even on a flight from Amsterdam.

In this step you choose where in Ireland you'll live. That choice shapes your housing search, and with it a large part of your costs.

• Dublin is the jobs machine, with the European headquarters of the tech sector. It's also the most expensive and tightest housing market in the country.
• Cork, Galway and Limerick offer city with a bit more air.
• The west, with Kerry, Clare and Mayo, is the Ireland of the postcard: rugged, green and wet. It's far from the jobs that can't be done remotely.

The choice is sharper here than elsewhere. If you come for work, you'll almost certainly end up in the Dublin region. Then you have to cope with the rental market there. If you come on a pension or work remotely, you can head into the country and halve your housing costs. So make this choice before you start looking for a home. The choice is the housing search.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. The good news: the paperwork here is free. The PPS number costs nothing, and a registration doesn't exist.

The money goes mainly to three things:

• The home. A new rental contract costs € 1,755 on average nationally, well above that in Dublin.
• The crossing, if the car comes along.
• The energy bill, because Ireland has the most expensive electricity in the EU.

Work it out with your own choices.

In this step you decide together whether it's going to be Ireland. You end up with a few conditions on paper that you both stand behind.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, with a week in between:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Ireland? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be arranged for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4 sheet.

Ireland feels familiar: English, EU, an hour and a half's flight. Still, four things need to be on the table:

• The rental market. This is the tightest in the EU, and the search can take months. If you have no buffer for an expensive bridging period, you need to know that beforehand.
• The climate. Mild but wet, with a winter that's above all dark.
• The costs. Groceries, healthcare without a medical card (the Irish healthcare card) and above all electricity are above Dutch levels.
• Healthcare. Without a card the GP costs € 60 to € 80 per visit there. For pensioners the S1 route solves that surprisingly well. The S1 is a form from the CAK, the Dutch body for the healthcare of people living abroad on a Dutch pension.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you can both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Ireland and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. From the moment you're no longer insured, you have one year to take out voluntary insurance with the SVB. Also discuss who carries the income in the first months, whether the partner without an income keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on big expenses.

Married, registered or living together? It can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. If you're both Dutch, each of you lives in Ireland in your own right. If your partner has a nationality from outside the EU, they apply for a residence card in Ireland. A spouse or registered partner does so with the regular form, EUTR1. An unmarried partner in a durable relationship applies with EUTR1A for an assessment. Check at your healthcare further on in your plan what else applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four: tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed habits, like the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school: tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, like their room.
• Teenagers: involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs heaviest. Agree how they keep in touch and when they see their friends again.

In Ireland you apply to each school separately, not through the council. The round for the next school year already opens on 1 October.

Who learns the language, and when? In Ireland daily life is in English. At school Irish is a core subject too. If your child went to school abroad for three years or more, and is 12 or over or has already finished primary school, they can get an exemption. Is the English of one of you rusty, often that of the partner without work and without colleagues? Then plan together how to brush it up, preferably before you leave.

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. From that moment it guards the clocks that exist:

• The seven days and thirty days around the car.
• The 24-to-120-hour window for the dog's tapeworm treatment.
• The three months for which every proof of address stays valid.