RECRUITMENT FIRMS AND estate agents have seen a significant increase in enquiries from people in the UK about relocating to Ireland since the Brexit referendum.

With sterling touching 30-year lows, the Bank of England warning of a new recession in Blighty, and fears that Tory desires to reduce immigration will see them frozen out of the European single market, there has been a surge in interest in relocating to Ireland.

Robert Mac Giolla Phadraig, managing director of Sigmar Recruitment, said they have been inundated with job applications and relocating queries from UK-based employees looking to move to Ireland.

“We’ve shown a huge spike in talent for people exploring relocating in Ireland,” he told TheJournal.ie.

We’ve been inundated with people – there’s been an increase of 300% in the last two weeks of enquiries from people, mainly in the financial services, technology and pharmaceutical industries.

“We’ve had 310 calls in the last week alone.

“Most UK companies operating in Ireland know that salary is demand-driven. When it comes to the low price of sterling, the companies themselves are absorbing the costs.”

Charlie Flanagan at the 'Risky Business' conference in the Aviva Stadium in May Source: Rollingnews.ie

Estate agents

Mary Dillon of Sherry Fitzgerald told TheJournal.ie that they have seen huge interest in Irish houses they are marketing through the UK website rightmove.co.uk.

“The level in our interest in our properties marketed on rightmove remains exceptionally strong since the referendum.

We have a lot of people interested in buying property in Ireland at the minute, both residential and c ommercial, in Dublin and the main coastal towns and cities.

“It’s up around the 20-30,000 mark each weekend. We monitor it on the daily basis.”

Sherry Fitzgerald had 8,556 ‘hits’ for their houses in the weekend before Brexit, but on the two post-Brexit, the hits went up to 20-25,000, despite the fall in sterling.

Employer sentiment

Sigmar’s ‘pulse survey’ of over 100 Irish employers found that 88.79% said Brexit has had no immediate impact on their planned hiring activity for 2016.

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And 64.55% feel Brexit will have no effect on 2017 hiring activity either. Around 28.18% are unsure, however.

Sigmar Recrtuiment MD Robert MacGiolla Phadraig Source: 1IMAGE/Bryan Brophy

It was the larger indigenous companies and multinationals that expressed greater uncertainty for 2017, possibly due to the uncertainty of 2017 GDP forecasts.

Around 7% of firms anticipating hiring less staff in 2017 as a result of Brexit, with around two thirds saying it will have no effect on 2017 hiring, while 28.18% of employers said they would take a ‘wait and see’ approach.

Over half of firms said it would make it easier to attract UK-based staff to Ireland.