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Numerous shops, restaurants and other businesses in Dublin are advertising in their windows for staff. To fill jobs at high technology companies, Irish recruitment agencies are having to scour the world.
The Irish Republic, where emigration was the norm for generations, is now experiencing a severe labour shortage.
The Dublin government reckons the country will need to recruit 200,000 skilled workers from overseas in the next seven years. The number of vacant semi-skilled or unskilled jobs is probably even greater.
The booming Irish economy, the Celtic Tiger, has already attracted tens of thousands of emigrants to return home.
In the year to April 1999, 48,000 people - many of them returnees - entered the country to live, and only 29,000 left. Net immigration since 1995 has totalled 64,000.
Many people with no particular family connection to Ireland are also choosing it as their home. A few of the more famous examples are Marianne Faithfull, Rolling Stones singer Ronnie Wood and the BBC's John Simpson.
So should you think about joining them? Aside from whether it could enhance your career, do the green hills, golf courses and excellent schools attract you? If they do, it is time to look at the financial prospects.
To the casual British visitor, Ireland seems very cheap because the value of the Irish pound, which is part of the euro, has slid to the point where it costs IR£1.22 to buy £1 sterling. Ireland's low corporate taxes have attracted the European bases of some of the largest US companies, particularly in hi-tech industries.
If, like Faithfull or Wood you make a living as an artist, a move is worth considering. Artists get generous tax breaks, allowing them to pay no tax at all on most of the income received from their works.
But for normal working people, it is wise to look closely at the tax situation, as it is pretty confusing. The top rate of income tax is 44 per cent this year - down 2 per cent on last year.
A single person goes on to the top rate after earning only IR£17,000. A married couple with two incomes hits the same rate at double this (they are taxed jointly), but a couple with one income reach this level after IR£28,000.
Figures from the Dutch investment bank ABN-Amro confirm that the tax burden on single people is much higher than the UK, except for the low paid. A single person earning £10,000 in the UK pays 16.6 per cent of their pay in tax and National Insurance.
The total deductions in the Republic on IR£10,000 would be only 11.6 per cent. So if you want to fill one of the many hotel, restaurant or shop jobs going begging, you could be better off.
For skilled workers, how ever, the situation reverses. On IR£25,000, the average pay in the Irish public sector, a single person pays 29.6 per cent in tax and National Insurance against 25.8 per cent in the UK. Moreover, the total deducted from those on £40,000 a year in the UK is 28.3 per cent, compared with 36.1 per cent in Ireland.
ABN-Amro concludes that Irish taxes are too high for skilled single people.
However, if you are married, and only one of you works, you will probably be better off there due to the generous married couple's allowance.
The other crucial thing to bear in mind is that the cost of renting or buying a home in Ireland has sky-rocketed in recent years, so even if your net earnings look good, they could all be dedicated to keeping a roof over your head.
However, John Bradley, director of personal financial services at KPMG in Dublin, says: 'We deal with a lot of expats and the reaction I get from UK people is that a lot of them like the lifestyle. It's more laid-back, there's good golf and recreational facilities, and they like the quality of the education'.
Whether this is enough to make you overlook paying 44 per cent tax on most of your income is a personal decision.
So, these are the factors you should consider before crossing the Irish Sea to live:
Tax
If you move to Ireland, you will have to pay Irish taxes whether you are paid in the UK or the Republic. But if your income is from other countries, you will pay Irish taxes only on the sums that you actually bring into Ireland. This also means that non-Irish people living there can hold their savings offshore of the UK and Ireland, and not pay Irish tax on them.
For those who do have to pay, tax is much higher now in Ireland than in the UK. The good news is that by 2002, when the next Irish general election is due, the standard rate should have reduced by 4 per cent to 20 per cent and the top rate cut by a similar percentage to 40 per cent.
The Dublin government, aware that it needs to get more of its people doing paid work, is also moving away from giving a married couple, where only one partner works, an effective £11,000 in extra tax allowances. Single person's allowances are expected to rise.
Bear in mind that many indirect Irish taxes are higher. VAT is 21 per cent, compared to the UK's 17.5 per cent. Taxes on buying property, as you will see below, are eye-poppingly high.
Property
Irish house prices have shot up to the point where houses and flats are all but unaffordable to people on average pay.
A three-bedroom house in a pleasant part of Dublin will probably cost in excess of IR£350,000. Rents too have soared. A two-bedroom Dublin flat can easily cost IR£1,000 a month.
The good news is that you do not pay rates or community charges in Ireland, although some councils do make smallish charges for refuse collection and the like.
The other good news is that mortgage rates are lower than in the UK. The standard rate is between 4.8 and 4.9 per cent, although the Bank of Scotland is offering 4.19 per cent.
You will be severely stung by stamp duties, however. The Irish government charges a whopping 5 per cent on houses worth up to IR£250,000, 7 per cent on property up to £500,000 and 9 per cent above that.
The property boom has proved to be a good earner for the government. Its other charges include stamp duty on your mortgage, and land registration tax.
Lawyers also get in on the act. Dublin solicitors routinely charge 1 per cent of the cost of the property for conveyancing. All in all, it is much more expensive than buying property in the UK.
The government is giving tax breaks to encourage landowners to build new homes for sale but, because Ireland is in the euro, it is unable to raise interest rates to cap demand.
And - despite the high prices - demand for property has not yet been choked off.
Cars
Cars are generally more expensive in Ireland than in the UK because of higher taxes, although the manufacturers themselves actually charge less.
If you do decide to move, the best option is to take your British-registered car with you, provided you have owned it for at least six months. You will pay no extra taxes on it as long as you do not sell it for at least 12 months after your arrival.
You will find that petrol is cheaper than in the UK, which is why there are few petrol stations just north of the Irish border.
Health and schools
You may curse the failings of the National Health Service until you have to manage without it. Unless you are claiming social security or are a pensioner, you have to pay for each visit to the doctor in Ireland - usually IR£25 per consultation - for dental treatment and for all your medicines, some of which are very expensive.
Many employers offer partial, or in some cases total, insurance cover. Childcare in Dublin is cheaper than in London. The charges are more in line with those in the North of England.
There is a shortage of nannies and of nursery places, again due to the national shortage of labour.
Irish schools, on the whole, are very good, although some parents prefer private education, which has not suffered the same fee inflation as in the UK (see case study).
Many state schools are run by the Catholic church.
Case study: 'We can't afford a house'
Michael O'Loughlin, a screenwriter and novelist,
left Ireland in the Eighties and returned two years
ago to take advantage of the tax-free earnings for
artists.
His return was 'not in any way sentimental', he
says. 'It was financially pragmatic and to see if
Ireland was how I remembered - a laid-back sort
of place.' He and his Dutch wife have been
shocked, however, by high house prices in
Dublin, and disappointed by what they see as the
rampant materialism of the newly rich country.
'We came back thinking we'd rent for a while and
then buy a nice house.' But they cannot afford to
buy, and are fed up with the lack of regulation of
the rental market, which means landlords can
charge what they like, O'Loughlin says. Their
11-year-old daughter is at a private school. The
fees are lower than in the UK, but he has found 'it
nearly impossible to find a free school that is any
good'.
Despite the tax break, exile beckons again: 'The
advantages of tax exemption are nearly
cancelled out by the high cost of property, to the
extent that we are thinking of leaving.'
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