May I ask how the IT job situation is in there?
Yes there are still a fair few jobs around, but because of the recession employers can be a bit more choosey so the skill set and language are very important.
Can we survive just on English?
Yes I think you can get all the essentials done in English, but to socialize and so on you need to speak one of the national languages. And of course because of the recession there are more candidates available so English only jobs are not so common.
How is the social/shopping/eating outside life?
Well Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries to live in as shown in this [broken link removed] and if you follow the typical Irish live style of the last few years, then your money will not go far. On the other hand if you live like a Swiss - frugal, then you should be able to save a nice sum.
People are they friendly?
Polite, fair and honest are words I use to describe them, but not friendly in the Irish sense. The Swiss take time to build up a friendship with someone, but once established they tend to keep their friends for their life time. It is not unusual to have class reunions from national school well into one's 70s! But having said that, at this stage, most of my friends are Swiss and I spend most of my day in a German speaking environment (including home), so perhaps I'm not the best one to comment on this.
Two things that will come as a surprise to you if you ever to come to work here is that there is no public health system, everyone is required to have health insurance and second there is very little labour law. An employment contract is no different to any other contract - no unfair dismissals, no redundancy etc... an employer can give you notice today without reason and go out tomorrow and employee someone else to take your place!