I don't know. What is the freeview box and can you tell me if it's more or less equal to the sky package. All I know is that I would prefer to stop paying the monthly fee to Sky on top of TV licence.
Freeview is an operator of digital terrestrial television in the UK. You canot receive it in Ireland. Freesat is a similar service launched on satellite in May last year. It is a consortium of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and carries a range of other free-to-view channels too. You CANNOT get Sky subscription channels on it. However, it DOES use the same satellites (the Astra 2D constellation I think) as Sky, so if you already have a Sky dish you can get Freesat by replacing your Sky box with a Freesat box. They are sold through a range of consumer electronics shops in the UK and NI, and I'm pretty sure can be ordered online.
I haven't looked into it in complete detail but am toying with the idea of switching ... I find I watch practically none of the Sky subscription channels and would much prefer to just have the BBCs, ITVs, Channel 4s etc. Oh, and BBC3, BBC4, CBBC, CBeebies etc. are on the Freeview box EPG, unlike the Sky Ireland EPG, so you can get program schedules for them and if you have a PVR you can auto-record them unlike with Sky. Even though you can manually tune these in on Irish Sky, the lack of an EPG for them renders them pretty much useless, IMO.
The one thing you need to know is you WILL NOT GET RTE on Freesat. You'll need to go back to an aerial for that. Last year the Minister for Communications said that RTE would launch a Freesat channel by Paddy's Day this year which would be a mix of the existing terrestrial RTE programming. The name wasn't decided -- perhaps "RTE International" or perhaps "Diaspora TV" (God forbid!). Anyway, I would say don't hold your breath for it. I don't watch RTE much, but having said that an RTE International on Freesat would probably be the clincher for me -- I would definitely switch away from Sky.
One easy way to think about Freesat is: you will receive what you would receive for free on your Sky box anyway if you let your Sky subscription lapse, except you will have an EPG for the extra BBC channels.
More info on freesat:
http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php