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+layout: post
+title: "Why I don't recommend Ireland when asked"
+date: 2022-10-27 00:00:00
+permalink: i-dont-recommend-ireland/
+categories: personal, ireland
+author: Mahdi
+---
+
+I have been living in Ireland for the past three years, and when asked about
+what I think of Ireland, and more specifically when people ask me for my
+perspective to factor in their decision to move to Ireland or not, I usually don't
+recommend Ireland, and here I will explain why.
+
+# Bureaucracy
+
+For anyone who lives here, the slow and carelessness of the bureaucractic system
+is a familiar fact.
+
+## Visa and Immigration
+
+The immigration office has a 1.8 review on [Google
+Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Garda+National+Immigration+Bureau/@53.3173976,-6.2685184,14z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x48670e856a8d9255:0x36a986ddb0dc0915!8m2!3d53.3473339!4d-6.2561597),
+which I completely understand, here are some personal experiences dealing with
+this office:
+
+When I came here first in 2019, I was given a short-term visa that had to be
+replaced by an Irish Residence Permit (lasting for a single year only). I
+couldn't believe the process: There was a website from the government which
+you would have to keep refreshing at certain times of the day, with the hopes
+that appointment slots would show up as you refreshed page, and you had to
+use those buttons, fill out the form as fast as possible to get an
+appointment. I believe this system has changed since, but it was mostly
+pushed by COVID to make the change.
+
+The fact that I have to renew my residence permit every year, going through a
+process that takes at least 2-3 months at a time, is itself extremely
+painful. When I want to apply for visas to other countries, the expiry date
+of my residence permit has an important influence over their decision, and as
+such this is not merely an inconvenience but a very limiting factor. It
+usually means the last few months of the residence permit and while
+conducting the process to renew it, I am unable to travel.
+
+When I and two couple friends of mine were applying to get our Stamp 4 visas
+last year, every single one of us encountered a problem in our process,
+"mistakes" you might call them, but the frequency of such mistakes is
+annoying: For me, they gave me a Stamp 4 visa for one year, which is supposed
+to be two years in duration. They of course did not answer emails or phone
+calls, so I had to show up to the office and drill the mind of the guard standing in
+front of the building to let me get my IRP and passport to someone inside to
+resolve this issue. He accepted (which was nice of him), but when he came
+back, he only came back with my passport and said "You are right, this was a
+mistake, we will send you another IRP soon". "Okay, where is my current
+IRP?", and to my astonishment, they had thrown it in the bin, that left me
+with no residence permit until the new one arrives. This was while I had an
+appointment at Spain BLS to get a schengen visa, which required me to bring
+my IRP... I insisted and insisted but they didn't give me back my current IRP
+until the new one arrives. To me this is just ignorance about the problems
+caused for people who depend on their residence permit. My two other couple
+friends also had similar issues and had to chase the office down to be re-issued
+correct residence permits.
+
+I started working here on a Critical Skills Work Permit with a company, and I
+realised the company's culture at the time was toxic (later the product manager
+who was creating this atmosphere was fired), and I wanted to change my company,
+but I was surprised to learn that the Critical Skills Work Permit does not allow
+you to leave your job before a year, and if you do, you are not eligible for
+another work permit before the year ends. I think I prefer UK's system where if
+I leave early, I pay the price of the visa sponsership and am free to change my
+work, rather than being locked in with no options available. I felt like a slave
+that one year.
+
+## Driving License
+
+The process to get a driving license in Ireland is probably the most horrific
+process I have had to go through ever. Here is the painful journey:
+
+To get a driver license class exemption because I had a driver license in my
+own country, I had to send my passport, my residence permit and my original
+driver license with a translation to the NDLS office _by post_. If it's not clear, that
+means I am literally left with no identity document whatsoever. If I am
+stopped by a Gardai and asked to bring identification documents, I will be
+unable to provide anything. That's part of the problem, once they had
+processed my application (which took months), they sent me back my passport
+and IRP, but not my original driver license. Of course, they had lost or or
+forgotten or some other "mistake". I call them, and chase it down and they
+say "don't worry we will send it to you and you should have it next week".
+Next week and I don't get anything, I call them again and they say "Oh no, we
+had not sent it, but I will make sure it is sent this time.", I hang up, and
+again, a week later nothing. I call them again, this time I am not hanging up
+until it is done. To put it into perspective, each one of those calls took
+more than 50 minutes because I had to wait behind a queue for about 40
+minutes, and put on hold for long times as they were investigating what
+happened.
+
+After the months-long process of getting the exemption from 12 classes down
+to 6 classes for having a foreign license, I start looking for instructors to
+do the classes with and then try to do the test. All instructors are busy and
+you are lucky if you can get classes in weeks, sometimes they accept students
+for the next 2-3 months.
+
+Once you do finish your classes, then you can get on the waiting list for a
+driving test, and that easily takes 8 weeks or more, and once you do get an
+invitation to book your test, you don't get to book a test for tomorrow,
+sometimes there are only slots available for the next few weeks, which puts
+the actual time from class to test to a range of 8 - 10 weeks.
+
+I think of the Irish driving license process as essentially nepotistic: the
+system is built on the assumption that people have families with cars, and a lot
+of time on their hand to practice with the learner driver. If you do not qualify
+for these conditions, you are bound to have a very expensive, very long and very
+frustrating process ahead.
+
+You are expected to practice with a driver who has held a license for 2 years
+sitting beside you (that's the only legal way to drive on a learner permit),
+however this is not available to people who do not have a family here (i.e.
+people who have just moved to the country). This leaves them with the option of
+hiring a driving instructor, which can cost you at least €35, and given how long
+it may take you to get comfortable with their car, this can get very costly
+fast. It is not only the matter of money either, driving instructors are busy,
+and it means they are not even available to give you a class a lot of the times.
+I personally was turned down by many instructors because they were too busy.
+
+To hire the instructor's car for the test is usually more costly, in my case it
+cost €60 to hire their car, that's on top of the test price itself which is €85,
+that means if you want to do a one-hour pre-test, hire the instructor's car and
+pay the test, it will cost you around €180 per test!
+
+I wish everyone good luck on their test, because if you fail the test for any
+reason, you will not be given a re-test for another 6 - 8 weeks at best, and
+again, you won't be able to book immediately, and have to arrange with an
+instructor to see when they are free to lend you their car, etc. etc. All of
+this means the time between tests can easily grow to 10 weeks.
+
+All in all, if you want a driving license in Ireland, set aside at least a year
+or more, and a lot of patience and capacity for frustrations.
+
+# Diversity
+
+When I talk about lack of diversity, it's not only about ethnic groups, but it
+also includes a lack of diversity in art communities, sport communities, and
+other communities and areas that benefit from a diversity of population.
+
+According to Ireland's Central Statistics Office, In 2016, Ireland had 82.2%
+White Irish residents, followed by 9.5% other White backgrounds (91.7% total
+White), 1.7% non-Chinese Asian and 1.5% other backgrounds
+([source](https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8e/)).
+
+It is different walking in London and Dublin, in London I, as a brown-skinned
+middle eastern, do not feel I am standing out among the crowd, but in Dublin,
+and more so outside of Ireland, I do.
+
+My main sport for the past 7 years or so has been parkour, a sport that you can
+find active communities for in every city in Iran, but in Ireland there is a
+tiny community with no strong facilities (I know of many parkour-specific gyms
+and parks in Iran). My only option was to use a gymnastic gym's adult class and
+just do my own training there using the equipment, which has since been closed
+and at the moment there is little opportunity for me to train since the small
+community in Dublin trains during work hours and weekdays. I'm not alone in
+this though, and I know in general other than specific favourite sports of
+Ireland, most other sports have tiny or nonexistant community among adults
+(children have much more facilities for sports, but apparently somehow people drop sports
+as they reach adulthood here).
+
+I decided to learn piano during COVID, so I bought a piano and started learning
+the basics on my own, but now that I would like to attend a sort of class or
+have an in-person teacher in a music academy, there are not many adult in-person
+classes with slots available. I have emailed and called different centres but
+was not able to get in-person classes.
+
+This also applies to work opportunities, as much as Dublin may be hyped as a
+tech hub, I find the work opportunity schene in Dublin to be very limited. Yes,
+large companies do have offices in Dublin, but there is not a strong startup
+culture here, and so you are limited to the Big Tech corps, and the small and
+far-in-between startups.
+
+# Travel
+
+Ireland is an island of course, and more importantly, it is not part of the
+Schengen area, so if you do not have a passport that allows you to travel in
+Schengen area, you need to be chasing visas from Schengen countries to travel in
+Europe. You also will have to count these days that you travel in Europe and
+Schengen area as days that may be redacted from your reckonable residence when
+applying for citizenship, which is in contrast to Schengen countries that do not
+track days spent in the Schengen area.
+
+One might say getting a Schengen visa is not hard, but I lost a ticket to
+Iceland I had booked, because embassies and visa offices simply did not have the
+capacity to issue visas at certain points, and even though I tried to get my
+visa months before my travel, I was not able to find an appointment to get my
+visa on time. That's money lost, but more importantly, a chance to see the
+active Icelandic volcanos, due to visa issues.
+
+# Alcohol
+
+Just too much alcohol, if like me, you do not particularly enjoy alcohol
+drinking sessions, you will find it hard to socialise sometimes. Everyone's
+default activity is going to a pub to drink beer.
+
+I remember when I was in Iran, when we wanted to arrange to go out for a night,
+it was not for beer, it was for going to a cafe and playing boardgames, or going
+to the mountain side of Tehran and sitting at the top of the hill and chatting
+and having tea, or going to an Escape Room, or visiting a gallery or a museum or
+a theatre, or even gathering in someone's home and cooking together and watching
+a movie or a comedy show or something.
+
+These things are not impossible in Ireland, but they are definitely not the
+default, the default is always the pub, and alcohol. To use numbers, Ireland has
+the [6th highest alcohol consumption in the
+world](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-consumption-by-country).
+
+# Racism
+
+I know, I know, racism is everywhere, and in Ireland too. I've had racist
+encounters with the Gardai, I've had racist encounters with my neighbours who
+found my appearance intimidating and had an old lady living in my apartment
+scream twice at the sight of me walking in the apartment halls. I've heard many
+horror stories of racism in Ireland, and although some Irish people will tell
+you "Ireland is not racist!", it absolutely is. I don't know how it compares to
+other countries, and I don't think that's a good argument, but you will
+experience racism here, specially if you are not white (being white does not
+make you immune though!).
+
+# Infrastructure
+
+I always find it hard to believe how Ireland is considered a "developed"
+country, perhaps I don't understand what is meant with that word, but I expect a
+developed country to have good infrastructure and for systems to work well.
+
+The public transport system in Ireland is _very_ limited and not reliable. That
+means a bus not showing up will happen at some point during your time here (not
+very common), a bus being late will definitely happen (very common). The weak
+public transport system, together with the fact that getting a driving license
+and a car is so hard, makes mobility a problem. Bicycles are also not as common
+as some other European countries (looking at you, Netherlands!) and some drivers
+have no respect for cyclists and think of them as an enemy (quite literally). I
+know of many people who don't cycle in Dublin out of fear of car drivers, and I
+understand it, even though I don't share the fear myself.
+
+The housing crisis is an ongoing issue in Ireland for a long time, and again, it
+is intertwined with lack of public transport and ease of mobility. If you want
+to move out of Dublin to spread out the population, you need a way for people to
+be able to move around, but public transport outside Dublin is nonexistant in
+many places, and getting a license is hard and time-consuming, so you are stuck
+in Dublin with ridiculous rents.
+
+The public health system is just as broken. One time when I took my girlfriend
+at the time to a public hospital for an emergency, we had to pay €100
+"admittance fee", and after that it took them quite some time to get her a scan
+and a doctor to look at the scan, after which she was told to wait outside
+"until called", when she asked people sitting around her, they mentioned that
+they had been waiting for 7 hours until now, in the emergency room, waiting for
+_the next step_.
+
+The coach in the gymnastic gym that I used to go to to train parkour, had a knee
+injury, and for the whole 6 months I went to the gym, he was still in queue
+waiting for a surgery from public hospital. In Iran, my friend who had a
+shoulder injury got a surgery at a public hospital in a couple of weeks.
+
+# Conclusion
+
+In the end, all of the things I described may seem like non-problems to someone,
+but I have strong reason to not want to live, spend my time and my tax money in
+a country that doesn't improve my life, and instead gives me baggages of mental
+frustration to carry around.
+