[Nonie]

Hi. Ireland has always seemed to me to be much closer, as a system, to NZ than England is but no, the NZ you describe is not like Ireland BEFORE it entered the EU. It sounds just like it now! Except, we pay 40-60 Euro for a doctor's visit (approx 80-120 NZ$) plus medicines up to a ceiling of 72 Euro per month; our roads are still awful (I travel two hours and more each way every day to work, and that's by bus!). I live in a very small town and a 14 year old boy was murdered by a 15 year old down our road for his mobile phone. I lived in London for 7 years and spent two years in The Hague and it was VERY difficult to get used to living in Ireland again - never quite managed it which is why I'm really looking forward to leaving again.

Everyone is going to be different and have different experiences and if I was going to emigrate just for money, I might as well move from the country into Dublin! Are you sure that you didn't move over there and expect to have a more relaxed pace of life but with all the amenities on offer in the UK? Lots of people do that and they invariably get disappointed and dissillusioned. Don't mean to preach but I did get caught by this when I returned to Ireland - I believed everything I had read in the papers, progressive, great economy etc.etc. Didn't realise that was only in Dublin. So this is why I'm reading everything about NZ that I can get my hands on - I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than bitterly disappointed.