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A woman working in Dublin tells of her experience being caught in a system where she says you are rewarded with benefits when unemployed only to have them stripped from you immediately and placed on the bread line when you enter back into the work place.
I’m at a loss for words to describe what has happened to my family. My partner and I have a gorgeous new baby and he has children from a previous relationship with whom we spend a fair amount of time.
He has been out of work for a while now and paying €100 euro per week out of his social welfare in maintenance – this was court ordered whilst he was on jobseeker’s benefit. I was out of work since the baby, but with the help of family and rent allowance we just about got by.
We were both living off my state maternity benefit and neither of us could get work, so we decided to move closer to where the jobs are. This meant the rent we were paying out doubled. Finally and thankfully I got a full time job last month, delighted! Finally some light at the end of the tunnel right? Wrong.
Even though my new job was far away, I didn’t mind, it was work. At this stage I thought it was our chance to get back on the food chain.
We did the right thing and told the social welfare I had secured a job. I was claiming jobseeker’s benefit when I was out of work. Within a week of me getting a job, my partner got a letter to say that we were being assessed – and in the meantime of the assessment his jobseeker’s benefit was being stopped.
There was no pre-warning – that was in the first week in April and I was not due to be paid until the last week in April. I was now in the situation where we had no income whatsoever, so I had to go to the welfare officer to see if they could tide me over until I get paid. We were told something different from everybody. When we dropped in all the information they had asked for – like my contract saying what I was earning as I hadn’t received a payslip yet – we were told that was fine.
We asked did they take into account the maintenance that we were paying, the travel expenses I had to get to work – she said all that was taken into account. The community welfare officer then told us that they take it on the gross earnings and that there was absolutely nothing they could do for us as I was working.
I just can’t believe it. They will only take into account my gross income, they ignore that a large portion of my salary goes on tax, PRSI and USC. And they ignore the fact that I’ve to travel 100 kilometres each way to get to work so with diesel and tolls it costs me around €140 a week just to get there and back. And they ignore the fact that my partner has court ordered maintenance to pay out of that dole payment.
When I called in relation to the matter the person at the social welfare office said “Do you have any idea of just how busy it is in here?” When I said I understood she told me that I was just lip-syncing and that I didn’t understand. She was just so rude – she had no compassion for my situation, no empathy. I complained and asked for a supervisor to call me – none did.
When we were cut off we went into arrears on the child maintenance payment and the thing with family law is that you cannot stop paying that unless a court order says so – you are liable for the arrears. So until we get a date we are now in arrears for hundreds until our case is heard. We don’t know when that date will be but the figure is clocking up every week.
We have already been told that if he does not uphold the payments until the case is heard that he can be locked up for breaching the court order. This is likely to happen but it will solely come down to the judge on the day. How is that just? As it stands we can’t afford car tax, there is no home heating oil in the house (with a newborn baby and other children there also) and the community welfare officer told us in no uncertain terms that we are entitled to nothing because I’m working and earning over €312, they won’t even look at it.
So that is what we have to live on – two adults, a newborn baby and the other children.
I feel I am being encouraged not to work and what really upset me is my partner has worked since he was 16, he has paid tax in his own right, he has paid PRSI, he has supported his family up until he could no longer do so, he has earned the right to earn jobseeker’s while he is out of work.
He was self-employed for most of the past decade and before that he was employed elsewhere. The sickening thing is that the Department of Social Welfare and Family have made him 100 per cent dependent on me. I now have two dependents, him and my baby. I called the Revenue to try and claim my partner’s tax credits and I was told “sorry you’re only cohabiting, you’re not married so you’re not entitled to anything”.
I know the argument that they are trying to protect the institution of marriage – but I belong to a family unit too and it is almost like we are being encouraged to break up. Even the pressure of the financial end of it is what can create family units breaking up, that is the fact of it. There are so many people out there that are living together and claiming single parents’ allowance and their rent allowance while the people who are up front and honest are the ones that are being discriminated against and punished for not being married.
The social welfare system appeals are taking over six months, so what are we going to do? Getting a job is the worst thing that’s ever happened to us. If I gave up work tomorrow I would get it all – rent allowance and social welfare. It just doesn’t make sense.
The contributor wishes to remain anonymous. Her identity is known to TheJournal.ie.
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I recently had solar panels and I had to have my Ber rating reassessed, I now ha a B2 assessment. To get it to an A rating I would have to wrap it, triple glaze it change the front and back doors and if the boiler goes have to get a heat pump installed.. Then throw in an electric car. I’m retiring in a few years so unless the government fund the most of this it wont be done.
My house is only 15 years old and it will cost a fortune to upgrade it most older homes have no chance..
@johnabc: why is it always heat pump? Why not, panels, wrap, windows and electric heaters? We put a lot of money into the interior of our house, dry lining walls and all that lark to make it air tight and suitable for a heat pump is going to undo everything and cost a fortune to put it back the way it is. Why so much emphasis on the pump?
@Fiona Wyse: A heat pump is 3-4 times (the last I looked it up) more efficient than a straight electric heater.
For instance, if it required 10kW to heat your home, then a heat pump would consume around 3kW to do the same job.
(They do need to be a type suitable for each use, sized properly, and installed properly, though.)
@johnabc: If your house needs to be wrapped then your current rating isn’t B2 and it certainly wasn’t higher before you got the panels. If you’re going to make up stories at least have it make sense
@: What he is saying may be the truth.
I have triple glazed all round. I got solar panels and re insulated my attic.
My BER is now C1.
But here is the kicker. The BER fellow did his inspection in about 25 minutes. He even missed a thing that would have given me a supposed higher rating, I installed a water heater with the panels.
Now could anyone tell me how you do an inspection that costs €250 to get the grants in that time.
To me BER’s are not worth the paper they are written on. In fact they are a waste of the other kind of paper, legal tender.
@Donal Ronan: What is saying is completely false. He house couldn’t possibly have a B2 Rating at present with the amount of work he claims still needed to get it up to A level.
@johnabc: you won’t get a BER rating if you don’t buy an electric car?!
@Fiona Wyse: because a heat pump is way more efficient to run.
You’re assuming that BER ratings are accurate reflections of a building’s energy efficiency. They’re not.
@johnabc: my house is nearly 40 yrs old. I’m a pensioner. How am I going to do this. Could the EU Masters tell me this.
@Martin Mongan: That is false. Here is why what you are saying is not true.
If you are selling a house, you have to provide a BER.
@Donal Ronan: Apologies. I didn’t see that you were just questioning the electric car. But I think you might have picked him up wrong, as I did you.
@Martin Mongan: Sorry. I replied to myself. Probably, because no one wants to talk to me??
Apologies. I didn’t see that you were just questioning the electric car. But I think you might have picked him up wrong, as I did you
@johnabc: wear more clothes an you’ll save yourself a fortune
@Martin Mongan: only more efficient if you live in the nordic countries
@P. V. Aglue:
Nope, they are more efficient down here as well.
But only if you have spent a fortune on insulation that has an incredibly long payback and most people can’t afford.
@P. V. Aglue: Heat pumps are more efficient here than in colder climates.
A heat pump works by taking a large volume of low temperature heat and converting to a smaller volume of higher temperature heat.
The smaller the difference in temperature between the two – between the lower temperature and the higher temperature – the easier it is for the heat pump to do its job.
Assuming for a moment that the average winter temperature here is 4 Celsius, and the average required room temperature would be 20 Celsius (I like simple calculations), then the difference between the two is 16 degrees.
For a Nordic country the average winter temperature might be -6 Celsius. That is difference of 26 degrees between the two, and much more effort must be used to achieve the same result.
Where the Nordics have a head start is that their housing stock tends to have much better insulation, so whatever heat they do generate is maintained longer, before it is lost to the outside environment.
In short, heat pumps should work better here, but the retention of any heat generated should be better in Nordic countries.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Actually, in my comment I made a basic error.
The temperature is typically raised to maybe something like 55 Celsius, so that this higher temperature can heat a room to its desired temperature (e.g. 20 Celsius).
A silly mistake to make.
Sorry!
But the basic point remains, just the values used change.
In Ireland the heat pump might have to work to raise a large volume of low temperature heat (e.g. 4 Celsius) to a smaller volume of higher temperature heat (e.g. 55 Celsius), say a difference of 51 degrees, whereas in a Nordic country that might be from -6 Celsius to 55 Celsius, a difference of 61 degrees.
So although a heat pump would not have to work quite as hard in the Irish climate, the difference is not quite as large as would be suggested in my initial comment.
Sorry!
There will be green pigs flying in the sky before this happens. 10 years to build 1 hospital and now tgey want to retrofit every builing in the country in 17 years. Absolutely deluded
@Paul Keenan: And that €1 trillion estimate for the whole EU?
That will be €1 trillion alone for Ireland once the civil service award the contracts to BAM.
@Paul Keenan: it’s a different film, it’s a different shark..
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: exactly what i thought.£1trillion for the whole EU.Did somebody in an office in Brussels make that up.Talk about living in cloud cuckoo land.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: We’re one percent of the EU population, I don’t think even BAM will want that level of kickbacks.
@Seamus Enright: I can see the management of BAM looking through catalogues for yachts and private jets the moment they saw that report
@Paul Keenan: still not finished
A “Government Scheme” will enable people with spare cash to invest a bit and get a bit.
The big majority of Irish people out there don’t have any spare cash. Same as the big majority who are driving cars that are certainly over 6 years old and they haven’t the cash to go Electric. It’s all pie in the sky until somebody figures out a way that makes all of these initiatives affordable for all.
@Gerry Ryan: The EV grant was quickly dropped once all the wealthy got theirs. The rest of the population can go swing. That is the policy of the current government.
@Laois Weather: It has not been dumped why spread lies. Try harder to get your facts right.
@B6Tr3OgE: downsized
@Laois Weather: The wealthy create the 2nd hand market, is the thinking right?
Hahahaha Mr cuffe do me a favour and take eamo and the rest of your clan and your ridiculous bike lanes agenda and do one…
Eamon is already collecting enough of our taxes for this. Don’t apply to Ireland.
One of the easiest policies to implement would be to capitalise the likes of ESB to install solar panels on every suitable building at zero cost to the householder/business owner. The value of the power generated over the following years should be then recouped to offset the cost of panels and install. When paid back, the householder and business owner sees the value of the power generated used to discount their bills. This would reduce fossil fuel dependence and initially cost nothing to homeowners before they see the benefits.
The problem with this policy of course is that nobody makes off into the sunset with a trailer load of money from it. As always, someone somewhere has to make a killing and they’re usually supported by the political class to do so.
@Laois Weather: So you want the ESB to put PV panels on my roof with the promise of getting a discount in 10 years time? Pull the other one – it’s got heat pumps on it!
@Kilkenny Proud: You can lead a horse to water…
@Kilkenny Proud: so you get free solar panels and your still not happy
@Laois Weather: …and face a class action lawsuit from all the solar installers out there for putting them out of business. This is not what ESB do.
@MTB Mayo: So you are saying that the ESB are not allowed to compete?
But you also make assumptions.
Perhaps they would sub-contract the actual installation to existing installers.
Another EU scheme. Meanwhile they are pumping millions, and billions into mass murder.
“You will be forced into debt and you will be happy.”
They’ll have to take my woodstove from my cold, dead hands.
I wonder what new tax is going to replace the lost revenue from lower energy bills ?
@Peter Jo: 23% VAT on building materials, income tax on builders/installers
@Peter Jo: While currently suspended, the PSO levy will be ramped up in the coming years to make up for lost taxes from road fuels. Watch this space. The motorist chips in a staggering €6.2 billion annually to the exchequer. This substantial tax take is not going to be allowed to be sacrificed in the name of Climate Change. It will be moved/rebranded to be collected elsewhere.
@Peter Jo: Don’t forget lower energy bills means lower imports of oil, gas, coal, whatever, and increases our balance of payments.
Or something like that.
(‘Tis a long time since I was at school.)
Lots of apartment living around the Mediterranean won’t bother with it.
Older buildings shouldn’t be forced, like in Italy, if it can affect the building negatively.
Public buildings , I think , shouldn’t be done first, rather have a 2 pronged approach, public and private buildings , different schemes etc..
To reduce the use of heating is only a good thing and to have buildings needing less electric, also good.
Lots of jobs to be created to use such funds so an emphasis should be on job creation and retention as well, Irish government can surely do that part.
Where do community and sports buildings come into this is a question I’d ask.
Also a good time to make generating electricity and selling it, for a fair price, by the average Joe, a priority while on this subject .
@Colm Molloy: It wouldn’t be necessary to insulate Mediterranean buildings to that level, considering the mild winters they get
@Dominic Clancy: insulation works both ways, warmer climates would benefit by not having to run the air con as much
Very true .What are these air cons costing.Was in portugal recently and needed to have it on 24/7.
@Dominic Clancy: My Italian neighbour tells me it gets very cold in the winter where he grew up (somewhere about 2/3rds of the way down the right hand side, on the Adriatic coast, as I remember).
But very hot in the summer. (He did his military service in Sicily.)
He prefers the weather here, I think.
@Dominic Clancy: clear skies mean nighttime temperatures in winter can fall to 0 degrees C, or even a bit lower. In the South of France, winter daytime temperatures are often below 10 degrees.
Ok, not as cold as in Northern Europe, but cold enough that decent insulation makes a difference
@Dominic Clancy: The point was the European fund won’t be drawn done the same across the EU and this one, I think, would benefit Ireland more than say Mediterranean EU..
But now thinking about that, colder EU might get more.
Depends on how the people go for it but I think would do well.
@MartinMongan – I’m in my mid 50s so if I borrowed a large 5 figure sum to retrofit my house I should get the money back in energy bills savings in time for around my 140th birthday. Sound economics….
Who is going to do all this retrofitting?
We (and most other developed countries, to various degrees) are in the middle of a housing crisis fueled in a large part by a shortage of builders, this proposal will make that worse.
All insulation grants should be stopped so to allow those builders to tackle the bigger problem.
A lack of housing.
@P.J. Nolan: still trying to push the nonsense that there isn’t enough builders. There is PLENTY. I’ve yet to see a data centre or a commercial project being cancelled because they can’t get the men in. There is ZERO political will to build housing, that’s why
@P.J. Nolan: Cowboys of course, just like the ones who did roof insulation a while back.
@Martin Mongan:
If the problem is only a lack of political will why have SF acknowledged it will take at least 10 years to solve it?
And by the way, I will be voting SF in the next election, we need change.
@P.J. Nolan: Why will it take 10 years to solve it?
Because the problem has been allowed to fester to decades under successive FF, FG and FFG governments.
@P.J. Nolan: because the housing targets are so way way way off what the need to be, that it’ll take ten years just to start getting where we need to be, if we had of taken this seriously in 2019, we’d be half way there (there’s the absolute lack of political will I was talking about)This has been going on for years now and the problem is only getting worse. Like I said before I’m yet to hear of a project getting cancelled because of a lack of man power, it’s not a shortage of workers. We are slowing creeping towards both now as most apprentices are leaving the country as soon as they qualify.
@Donal Ronan: sorry i can’t reply directly to you something wrong with the journal.
I can completely agree with you the ber assesments are garbage. All i got was 6 solar panels (room for no more) and also put some heat reflectors behind the radiators and went brom a C2 to a B2. I asked the inspector what i would have to do to make it an A and was told triple glazing wrap and front and back doors.
To mr no name above this is what I was told by the inspector you don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to.
@johnabc: Then you got ripped off by your inspector. And yes the journal is having issues yesterday evening I had a name. Today I tried to comment and was told to enter my name and now I’m nameless. No Idea how to get my name back
@: You’re not Voldemort, by any chance?
Censorship is rife in 2023. Pretty sad how we are becoming a totalitarian society. Not allowed to have opinions, too dangerous to speak truth to power.
Big bad whitey is gonna have to bankrupt himself to fix the weather
Those nice Indians & Chinese can continue to pollute so they can catch up with us
The great “we can fix the weather” hoax continues unabashed & unquestioned
@Gerry Kelly: I know imagine having to pay less to heat your home it’s all a WHO plot to control us
@Martin Mongan: Will the next Bond villain be one that creates climate havoc?
For “reasons”.
Free retrofit in Romania (well, paid by Government and local councils) for houses and apartments, but shockingly expensive in Ireland.
Now: both countries use the SAME EU programme, so I wonder why do we have to pay here for a funded programme that costs nothing for citizen in Eastern EU? Where are the money going here?
@Chris: “Where are the money going here?”
Corporation profits, of course.
With a fair sized dollop of incompetence.
No landlord will go for this, to them it’s all cost and no benefit as the tenants pay the bills. Result those who can’t afford to buy AND retrofit get screwed as usual.
@Steve O’Hara Smith.:
Ah but there is a clause in rent pressure zone law that allows a landlord to apply for an exemption if he significantly improves the BER of a property.
@P.J. Nolan: Right so the owner of an HMO would have to kick all the tenants out, get a retrofit done (while getting no income from rent and building up a debt) and then apply to be allowed to charge a higher rent than the current unaffordable rent that’s already putting their tenants into financial difficulties.
I can’t see many going for it.
@Steve O’Hara Smith.:
What’s happening is landlords who were caught charging low rent when the RPZs came lots of them are selling up, buying a owner occupier house, more than one if the move business out of Dublin and charging market rent.
Other’s are using the BER upgrades to bypass the RPZs, if you are only getting 1,300 pm but can get twice that it justifies the cost.
And yes, the people at the bottom, those who can’t afford the higher rents, get screwed.
Problem is, with such a sort supply there is always enough who can.
Can’t build enough houses for people to live in,in this country.. you’d want to be very optimistic to get every property retrofitted by 2050.. probably 3050 for a quarter to be done, with the way things work here..
Not compulsory so no thanks Going into debt at my ages it’s not worth it. There’d be some clause within this that the debt would stay on the house and they’d claim their money back when you die. Nothing is free in Ireland. Fine print worth a solicitors look.
This is a good think for the society.
EU just made a step towards a greener future and ensured there is 25 years work with turnover for the EU economies to the tune for 1 trillion.
After 3 decades of computerisation now is time to take care of the house and garden.
Ireland represents just over 1% of the EU population, 1% of 1 Trillion Euros is 10 Billion Euros, 1/16th of what we spent bailing out International Banks in 2008. It’s less that half the budget for the HSE for one year, and the timeline for this project is 17 years.
The benefits would enormously outweigh the costs if it was done effectively, both to people’s living costs and the environment.
@Seamus Enright: If you actually believe that €1 trillion.
It will be orders of magnitude greater than that.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: It says “up to” €1 Trillion in the article, I accept it might be somewhat higher.
If it was done effectively it would improve many people’s lives and reduce the continent’s dependency on Russia for gas. I still don’t know what we got in return for paying for a third of the European Bank Bailout.
@Seamus Enright: Yes, I know it says €1 trillion.
I just don’t believe it.
€1 trillion would be about €11 billion for Ireland.
That would be about €5,250 per home in Ireland.
Do you believe we could upgrade any home in Ireland for €5,250?
Another way to squander your tax money.
Not green. This spray in insulation cannot be recycled or repurposed. And can anything that it sticks to , wood ,brick concrete is not recyclable or fit for repurpose. .
I would suggest that, along with the grant, the applicant get additional tax credits to help offset the interest incurred for any loan they may need in order for works to be carried out. I am hoping to have a deep retrofit done within the next 3 years – planning to save as much as possible towards it and borrow the remainder – approx cost is €40k after grants. I do not wish to be repaying the loan for 10 years so as much assistance from the government in aiding this would be appreciated. Local authority housing are currently getting retrofits free gratis with no increases in rents (to my knowledge).
Are the unemployed tenants getting fuel allowance for their BER A or B1 property though – is it a set payment or is it based on the property type, age and retrofitted or not? If the former then that payment needs to be revised.
I can’t help but share this little titbit from russian Telegram propaganda:
Yesterday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the shooting down of two ATACMS.
“Two ATACMS missiles were destroyed as a result of a direct hit on the position of the Russian Armed Forces air defense group in Luhansk region and at the cost of 3 S-400 systems deployed there”
Source VChK-OGPU
In short, the russians are claiming the destruction of 2 Ukrainian ATACMS missiles, missiles that were destroyed by hitting 3 russian S-400 air defense systems.
This is Ireland. That 1 trillion would be put in envelops and you might get a tenner off a solar panel or something
@motojack: Naturally lots of the money would go to administration of the money, LOTS of it..
The Italian political class would benefit most , then Ireland maybe
have your say