Anyone thinking of emigrating?

If it was a simple thing to do I’d certainly consider it

Comparing 2019 living standards to today I'd be considering it yeah. In the UK and many parts of Europe you can live mostly-normally but in Ireland you just can't and this set-up is already semi-permanent.

You mean a maximum price of rent right? The last thing I'd want are those Landlords pushing 2K minimum on some shoddy housing estate.

E2100 to rent a 3bed townhouse in Balbriggan nowadays. Ireland ain't no place for the working man. After this year the gloss goes off Ireland for multinationals, reduced corporation tax etc - it may get messy fast. Mid 20s no ties I'd be gone, mid 40's with sprogs so I'll be sticking around!

https://www.daft.ie/for-rent/house-28-bremore-pastures-drive-balbriggan-co-dublin/3656726

Jesus... fifteen posts in and no one's defended the place... This is serious.

Would depend on what part of Spain. Stcik to a city with some ex-pats so you don't feel isolated, meet up with locals as much as possible and give it a week of decent weather and you'll be glad you did it

Take a look at Greek property prices also.

Yes, give it a go. Brave decision but you have more time than you think and returning in years to come, having had new experiences away, can be as rewarding as the leaving. 

The Irish govmt agenda has been to convince young people that the only important thing was the luxury of being seen to be socially progressive rather than the mundane essentials of life i.e. job, home, family. (Sickeningly there's also been constant conversation about how we used to be a racist sh*t-hole of a country. The “we” here equals your parents/grandparents!) As a visual metaphor for this policy, I see our recent Taoiseach, during an Irish lockdown, picking his nose in an english field at an S Club 7 concert.

I would be gone to the states if it was easy. I hate this country

I agree that the government is & has been since 1922 a miserable, ultra conservative, priest ridden, corrupt nightmare of a place for young people.

But the answer I don't think is to leave, the answer is to reform the system. You'll find all western governments since the late 60's/early 70's have been cracking down on what they call a "excess " or a "crisis of democracy" as they called it in a 1975 report. "The report observed the political state of the United States, Europe and Japan, and says that in the United States the problems of governance "stem from an excess of democracy" and thus advocates "to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions."

In other words the population is to free & people have to much democracy so governments have to become more authoritarian to create a more obedient & authority fearing population. Keep people afraid, feeling isolated & in line they won't try to create a more fair & free society.

As Noam Chomsky brilliant explains here, the principles of which the US was founded on, and this can apply to most other western states:

" The constitutional system was based on the principle that the prime responsibility of government is “to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority,” as Madison, the leading framer, explained at the Constitutional Convention. Therefore, he elaborated, power must be in the hands of the wealthy, while the public is fragmented and scattered so that the threat of democracy is reduced and the country can be “governed by those who own it,” as declared by John Jay, the president of the Convention and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."

He goes on..

"With all the changes that have taken place over two hundred years, that principle has been maintained, and indeed reiterated, particularly in the twentieth century, when leading Wilsonian liberals (Walter Lippmann, Howard Lasswell, etc.) explained that the “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders” (the general public) have no business interfering in the public arena – their “function” is solely to lend their weight now and then to one of the “responsible men” (elections)."

He explains the so called "crisis of democracy"

"the Trilateral Commission, representing the more liberal internationalist currents among elites from western Europe, Japan and the US, in their study Crisis of Democracy. The “crisis” was that during the ferment of the 1960s, the public began to depart from its normal apathy and passivity. The study recommends means to drive people back to their spectator role, so that “democracy” can be protected. Recall that this is the liberal side of the spectrum; the mislabeled conservatives are far more strongly opposed to democracy. Social policy and propaganda since have been directed to the goal of overcoming “the crisis of democracy” by sharply reducing participation in democratic institutions. The public grasps that in some manner; by now, an unprecedented eighty percent of the public regards American democracy as non-functional.

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The major attack on democracy is the effort to shift decision-making even more than before into the hands of unaccountable private tyrannies: the corporate world, which is fundamentally totalitarian in character, as long understood by business historians and political economists. That is the goal of the current efforts to weaken those elements of the national government that serve public needs, while expanding those that serve business power, notably the Pentagon system, which was designed in large measure as a device to transfer public funds to advanced sectors of industry under the guise of “security,” and continues to serve that function.

"

And I think it's pretty clear also that Irish & British governments whether Fianna Fail or Fine Gael, or Tory or Labour governments policies regarding the general population are very similar, reduce democracy and put power into the hands of "unaccountable private tyrannies: the corporate world, which is fundamentally totalitarian in character."

The young population who are eager for change, if determined enough, are the best hope of building a fairer & more egalitarian society.