Quality of life big attraction for expat community

Sunday Business Post - Dubai Special - Aug 19 2007

"It is the quality of life,” said David McGee, a 50-year-old Irishman who has lived in Dubai for the last two and a half years. “There is a whole range of things that give you an enjoyment about where you are living and working.”

“You have the beach, a vast range of restaurants, great hotels, every morning our newspaper gets delivered to the door for 10 cents, water gets delivered, your laundry gets collected and dropped back, you go to a hotel and you have valet parking.”

McGee, who works in financial services, writes a weekly blog (www.homethoughtsfromdubai.com), chronicling his life in Dubai and commenting on general business and property matters. McGee said that the majority of the approximately 6,000 Irish now living in the United Arab Emirates were probably attracted by the considerable career opportunities available.

"I think most people that are here, notwithstanding the quality of life, see the potential to make good money through working for companies at a senior level or establishing or creating your own company,” McGee said.



Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, is among the fastest growing cities in the world. In 1975 its population was less than 150,000. It is now approximately 1.5m and should hit 6m within the next 20 years.

Parts of the city currently resemble a huge building site, and a phenomenal amount of investment is pouring in. The tallest building in the world – Burj Dubai – is under construction. The largest airport in the world is planned, and the biggest man made port in the world is already open.

"I consider it exciting,” said McGee. “It is a reflection of the enormity of the aspiration of the government and the leadership of Sheikh Mohammed. It is very much a reflection of a can-do society. It does not have the bureaucracy of other cities or countries. A person, or a couple of people around that person, make a decision and things get done."

McGee pointed out that a substantial number of the inner circle around His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, are Irish.

These include Gerald Lawless, executive chairman of the Jumeirah Group, and Colm McLaughlin, managing director of Dubai Duty Free. Dermot Mannion, now chief executive of Aer Lingus, was previously a director of Emirates Group, the UAE flag carrier.

McGee said that Dubai was not quite perfect, citing the traffic, tremendous heat during the summer and some more baffling government decisions as negative factors of living there. Anyone expecting a low cost of living was in for a surprise, he said.

"The cost of living is not much cheaper than other cities such as Paris or Melbourne or London,” he said. “Supermarket prices are comparable with Ireland. Accommodation can be quite expensive, but the average size of a villa or apartment here is probably double or treble what it is in Dublin."

McGee said that Dubai society was also much more liberal than neighbours such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. He described it as an international city, which just happens to be located near the south-eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

“If people did not know they had got off a plane in Dubai, and you brought them around to any of the hotels on the shoreline or any of the better restaurants, they would not know they were in the Middle East. You could be anywhere in the world.”

Just 22 per cent of the population of the UAE are Emirati nationals. McGee said that most of his colleagues and friends in Dubai were expats from around the world, and that the Irish community was not particularly tight-knit.

"There are about four or five venues that will do the All Ireland hurling or football and the rugby internationals. You would probably meet more Irish at those events than you would in business circles as we tend to be dispersed."