PPS number, bank account, GP: the order of your first weeks

The chain

At the start there is an address, at the end an ordinary daily life, and in between five steps that build on each other. The most common mistake is to try them in parallel.

The bottleneck is step two. The PPS number, Ireland's personal public service number, depends on an address and on a reason, and without it almost nothing moves. That is exactly why housing comes before everything else when you plan the move, and why temporary accommodation that gives you proof of address is worth more than accommodation that does not.

The PPS number in detail

You apply through the Department of Social Protection, online or at a local Intreo Centre, and you need three things: identity, an address in Ireland and a reason why you need the number. A job is the simplest reason; without an Irish employment you have to show the reason another way, for instance through tax registration, the property or the children's school enrolment.

What counts as proof of address is where it sticks. A furnished holiday let without a contract usually does not. A registered tenancy or a purchase contract does. A bank statement with an Irish address does, if you already had the account, which without a PPS number you often do not: the classic chicken-and-egg problem of this procedure.

How we solve this for clients, and which documents we need for it, is under PPS number.

MyGovID, the digital backbone

Almost every dealing with the Irish state now runs through a verified MyGovID account, from exchanging a driving licence to tax affairs and social welfare. Verification requires the PPS number and in many cases an appointment in person or a Public Services Card.

For most newcomers that is a pleasant surprise: the Irish state is well advanced digitally. What it is not is quick when there is a backlog. Appointments at busy centres take time, especially in the peak season after the summer.

The bank account

Irish banks ask for ID, proof of address and in practice usually the PPS number. Opening an account from abroad before you arrive rarely works. What does work is a European account with an IBAN as a bridge, and in Ireland most utilities and landlords accept that for direct debits.

The Irish account is still worth opening early, for a practical reason: it builds the account history you will need later for a mortgage, for naturalisation and for any proof of residence. Anyone who has to prove their years of residence five years on is glad of an unbroken Irish account from month one. That is not a side issue; it is one of the reasons we recommend this order and no other.

The GP

The Irish health system runs through the general practitioner, and the GP is not an emergency contact but the front door to everything. Without a registered GP there is no referral, no prescription and no orderly route to a specialist.

Registration is an agreement with a practice, not an administrative act, and practices can refuse when they are full. In the small towns of the south-east that is not a given, and in areas where people are moving in even less so. When you view an area, ring two practices and ask whether they are taking new patients. That one question tells you more about a town's healthcare than any statistic.

Children under eight and everyone aged seventy or over are entitled to a GP visit card regardless of income, which makes GP visits free. Everyone else pays privately for the visit unless they hold a medical card. How the system works as a whole, and what private insurance adds, is under the health system.

What can run in parallel

Not everything hangs on the chain. Three things can be done independently and should be started early, because they need lead time.

School. It does not depend on the PPS number but on the admissions policy and on timing. Apply as soon as the address is fixed, not once the paperwork is done.

Insurance. Buildings insurance from closing, car insurance from registering the car. For car insurance your no-claims history from home counts, and you need to get it from your insurer there, ideally before the move and in English.

Leaving home. It is not an Irish procedure, but it decides from when your tax residence there ends. In the UK there is no residents' register to sign out of. What counts is the tax position: whether you are still UK resident is decided tax year by tax year under the statutory residence test, and depending on your circumstances split year treatment can make you non-resident from the day after you leave. You tell HMRC with form P85 if you do not usually file a Self Assessment return, or through the residence pages of your return if you do; HMRC's online services cannot be used for this. Readers from the Nordics or the Benelux deregister under their own country's rules. In every case the date is hard to correct later.

The chain in one paragraph

Address, PPS number, MyGovID, account, GP, in that order. School and insurance in parallel. Leaving home under your own country's rules and with a date you can justify. Do it this way and after six to eight weeks you have a working daily life. Start at step four and after six months you still do not.

Utilities and the house

Once address and account are in place, the unglamorous part follows, and it still eats time. Electricity and gas in Ireland are liberalised, suppliers differ considerably on price, and switching bonuses are common. Take over the previous owner's supplier and never switch, and you pay more for good.

Water depends on the property: houses on the public network are supplied centrally, many rural properties have their own well or a group water scheme, and then maintenance and water quality are your own job. The same goes for waste water if the house has a septic tank.

Bin collection in Ireland is private. You sign up with a company that supplies the bins and collects them, and in rural areas there is not always a choice.

And the point that surprises newcomers most often: rural Ireland has no comprehensive house numbering. Addresses in the countryside consist of house name, townland and county, plus the Eircode, a seven-character code that identifies exactly one building. Without it no delivery and no ambulance finds you reliably. It belongs on every order, every form and the fridge door.

What can wait in the first weeks

To keep the list honest: not everything is urgent. Tax registration depends on when residence begins and on how your income is structured, and it belongs in a consultation, not in week one. Exchanging an EU driving licence has no deadline. Private health insurance is a decision you can take calmly, provided nobody is in the middle of treatment.

What does not wait: a school place, a GP, buildings insurance from closing and the Eircode. Those four decide whether daily life works. Everything else is administration and can be staggered.

The timetable, realistically

Do everything right and the chain takes six to eight weeks. The PPS number is the longest single item, the account follows quickly, the GP depends on what is available locally.

Reverse the order and it takes months, not because of the authorities but because of the dependencies. An application without proof of address is rejected, not processed, and the rejection costs you the whole lead time.

One last point on expectations: Irish officials are friendly in tone and formal in procedure. Ring them and you get information. Lack a document and you get no exception. Both are true at once, and both surprise newcomers about equally often.

If you are coming as a self-employed person or business owner, you also have tax registration ahead of you, with its own deadlines and its own conditions. It does not belong in week one, nor in self-study, because the year of arrival is the most complicated period of all for tax. What we take on is under tax registration.

And if you are coming with children, know that school normalises daily life faster than any official errand. Once the school run is settled, much else sorts itself out.

What to take from this

The chain begins with an address you can prove, and it almost always sticks at the PPS number. Choose temporary accommodation without a contract because it is cheaper, and you buy yourself weeks of delay in everything that follows.

The Eircode is the smallest and most practical piece of Irish administration worth knowing, and ringing two GP practices is the most informative five-minute test of a town you can run.