Originally Posted by Batty

Hi SQ

I'm actually Irish - only left in June this year. Sorry about the 44% - I remembered afterwards that it was 42%. The Children's Allowance has always been called that - never child benefit. Maybe the 'newbies' call it that but not the natives. Yes, the average industrial wage is 30k but you do get a tax free allowance and people on lower wages pay very little, if any, tax. I know it changed a couple of years ago but don't know the details. One of the reasons I was glad to leave was the high cost of living - we had a very small mortgage but had to commute 5 hours a day to work because we couldn't afford to buy a house closer to Dublin. You're right, it's a great place to live if you have money (like the rest of the World I suppose) but being poor over there isn't pretty. I remember a classic one liner from an 'Inner city' Dublin woman once when there was a discussion about the Celtic Tiger - "Celtic Tiger? We're not even a stripe on its arse!" LOL