Focus on Our Members - The Relocation Bureau - Ireland

1n 1990, realising the potential to provide destination services to companies in Ireland, and having completed a “Start your Own Business course” I established the Relocation Bureau.  16 years on The Relocation Bureau is now one of the oldest providers of destination services in Ireland.   From the original core services of home-finding and school searches, as the company has grown over the years, we have experienced an increasing demand for additional support services including, orientation tours, immigration and work permits, tenancy management, cultural training, temporary accommodation and departure assistance.

The Relocation Bureau Ltd. are proud to have been appointed the Irish representative of TIRA and many of the leading International Global assignment Management companies.  Earlier in May of this year, to facilitate further expansion of our company, we moved to larger offices on the main street in Dun Laoghaire in south County Dublin.
 
The growth in our business has been partly due to the success of the Industrial Development Authority in attracting foreign investment into Ireland, in particular from the United States.  
We have seen the Irish economy changed from being agrarian and traditional manufacturing based to one increasingly based on the hi-tech and internationally traded services sectors.   There are now more than 473 US companies operating in Ireland contributing to Ireland’s current prosperity and The Relocation Bureau Ltd has assisted the employees of many of these companies relocating to Ireland.

Immigration into Ireland is now the norm, with 320,000 people coming from overseas to live and work in Ireland over the past five years.  A large proportion of these have come from the ten new European Union Member States, in particular Poland.  Preliminary figures for the last census in April 2006 indicate that there are 4,234,925 people living in the state.  This is an increase of 8.1% on the previous 2002 census and the highest figure recorded since 1861 when the population was 4.4.million.  
 
The expansion in employment has been such that the old pattern of emigration has been decisively reversed in recent years. Ireland no longer has enough people of its own to fill all of the jobs which are now on offer.  Recently published figures indicate that unemployment for November 2006 was only 4.5%, while long-term unemployment amounted 1.4% of the labour force.
 
Ireland has a well-developed system of work permits and visas designed to facilitate suitably skilled and qualified non-nationals interested in coming to live and work in Ireland.  The government recently announced plans for new arrangements to be introduced for entry into our labour market by non-European workers. As part of these new arrangements, there will be a new Green Card-type system for occupations where strategic skills shortages exist, which cannot be met from within the EU.  Once an individual has obtained a Green card his spouse and family can join him immediately and work without having to obtain a work permit.  Under this proposed system, Green Cards will be issued for two years initially and will normally provide a pathway to long-term or permanent residency thereafter. 
With an increase in the population and the low rate of unemployment the property market in Ireland has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade.  A recent report has shown that asking prices for residential property were rising at a 14% annual rate at the beginning of 2006. By September, they were down to 6%. This is primarily due to interest rates rising by 1.50% within the past 12 months and it is likely that interest rates will be further increased next year.
Within the letting market, we have seen a shortage of good quality 2 bedroom apartments within the Dublin area.  With the recent slowdown in the sales of larger family homes, a number of landlords with investment properties have decided to sell and as a result tenants have had to look for alternative homes, often at a higher rent.  An increasing number of Irish investors are now going abroad in search of value and purchasing in the UK, eastern Europe, Dubai and even as far as south Africa.
It is just over two years since the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 came into force in Ireland.  This Act contains far reaching reforms of the private rented sector and covers improved security of tenure, new tenancy termination procedures, provisions setting out clearly the statutory tenancy obligations of landlords and tenants and provisions for a new dispute resolution service through the The Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB) instead of the Courts.  We feel these new measures have helped greatly to regulate the letting market in Ireland.
 
One of the greatest challenges our clients and their families face when moving to Ireland is related to schooling.  Ireland has an excellent education system, however it is often difficult to secure places in local schools without first having to make written applications and register on a waiting list.  This situation can apply to both fee-paying or a non-fee paying school. 
Because the state primary schools have such a good reputation, the number of private primary schools has been falling.  We hope in the near future that a new international school would be set up in the Dublin area to provide education to many of the overseas families seeking an international school in the area.

Currently, the overall tax burden in Ireland is the lowest among all other EU member states.at only 12.5%.  We believe that if the Irish government can continue offering companies one of the most beneficial corporate tax environments in the world, these companies will need our support in assisting their employees to relocate to one of the most prosperous countries in Europe.