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This question is specific to irish people (or long time residents) because Eire is the only country in "Euroland" where the exchange parity between the old currency unit (punt) and the new euro is inferior to 1 (exactly 0,787564). It means that at the beginning of 2002, the nominal wages in punts had to be increased to be converted in euros. At the same time in France, our own wages and incomes were divided to a 6,55957 : 1 ratio (in Spain or in Italy, it was worse, of course…).

Of course, the value is the same but on the continent, people share the feeling to be poorer, and in despite of official figures, believe that prices had a sharp rise (for some specific products, it is not totally wrong…). Taking in account the specificity of the irish ratio exchange, I’m looking for concrete testimonies about how "normal" people experienced the use of our common currency unit. Thank you for all your answers, I’m really interested with that !
Thanks a lot RM, that’s really what I’m looking for ! For us, Spain (and Italy too) became much more expensive from tourist point of vue. I couldn’t imagine that in Ireland, people could have such a feeling too.

The figures looked better, but the cost of living has shot up in Ireland over the past ten years, long before the introduction of the euro, and shot up again shortly after the euro came in, so the outcome is that the €50 seems to be the same as the old £20, and it’s not worth tuppence!
I can’t BELIEVE how much cheaper Spain is compared to Ireland - a €50 in the supermarket will get you a decent amount of stuff in Spain, in Ireland, you can hardly support yourself for €50 a day for food.
So we feel much poorer too, despite the higher figures!

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10004716.shtml