GAA PUNDIT JOE Brolly described how he invited a young homeless man to stay in his home just before Christmas, giving him a chance to get back on his feet again.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, Brolly also spoke about organ donation the political climate in the north, as well as about how he came to support the man in December.
He said: “I saw the kid on the street, and we talked for a while. He was only 20. It was freezing so I said ‘come with me’, so he came with me.
That was the start of December. It’s a bit like Trading Places. I trusted him, and very quickly he responded to that. He was warm, he was safe, he didn’t have to pay rent or anything like that. He was eating well.
While in his house, Brolly said he lent the man his suits so he could wear them to job interviews.
“I’m about a foot taller than him, and he was borrowing my suits to go to job interviews,” the GAA analyst said. “He was going to job interviews in my suits looking like Charlie Chaplin, proud as punch.”
He said that the first job the man got was a zero hours contract where he had no guarantee of work from one day to the next. Since then, however, he has gotten a job as a painter and decorator, and is “absolutely thrilled”, according to Brolly..
Before wrapping up the conversation, however, he highlighted a situation that showed how the “alternative is very bleak”.
He said: “About a month after he was with me, I drove him to the funeral of a friend from the street who had died of hypothermia.”
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