John and Miriam are a married couple in their late 20s, living in Britain with two small children. They have been away for several years, but are planning to come home in April 1998.
By trawling through the job advertisements in The Irish Times each Friday, John has already found a job which will pay him £25,000 a year - the same as his current wage in Britain. Miriam will not be working.
While looking forward to a better quality of life back in Dublin, the couple dreaded the tax implications of the move, and had heard horror stories from others about how much of their income they would have to pay out. To their surprise, they learnt that from April they will wind up paying less tax in Ireland than in Britain, and their net income will actually be more than £1,000 higher.
But they were disturbed to hear Mr McCreevy made no move to curb the high cost of houses in Dublin, and maintained Stamp Duty at its current level.