When I grow up I want to be old and agitating

WHAT a week last week was, the dissent following the Budget broke onto the streets culminating in the largest and angriest demonstrations in a long time, certainly in terms of particular groupings in our society in a long time. Yes there have been large anti-war demonstrations but that has attracted protests from across the board, this week has been different and brilliant for that difference.

First we had the Budget speech which on first hearing had some pretty stark and dire cutbacks and while we were expecting a hard Budget this surpassed everything given that the very people who did not benefit from the boom years here once again were being expected to pay hard for a Government that cruised its way through good times. Over the days that followed it became clear the Budget was even worse than first anticipated.

The first murmurings of 'no way' came from the pensioners. Their automatic right to a medical card once over 70 was being taken away. Phonelines to politicians, radio shows, the media have been hopping since then as older people, their family and friends have all made sure anyone and everyone would listen to the fact they were not happy with this, not happy at all. Not since SPUC organised mass call-ins to popular tv and radio shows in the 1980s (when a handful of calls could jam the Late Late Show phonelines) have we seen anything like it.

At a public meeting they bayed for blood, settling for heckling Government representatives at a public meeting where they concluded by singing 'We shall overcome'. Culminating all this action with a protest to the Dail the next day. Booking out complete carriages on trains all over the country descending on Dublin, they showed how a demonstration should be done. Placards were hastily put together using whatever came to hand, crutches, walking sticks, paper and cellotape with all sorts of witticisms. One which seems to have been a firm favourite with everyone I spoke to was the ‘no country for old men’ movie poster.










In the most organised non-organised campaign (certainly at the beginning anyway), they dominated the airwaves, taken pride of place in all the calls made to Joe Duffy with his show focusing on them for over a week; they have been splashed over newspaper, they have phoned, emailed and visited their local representatives, their families have done the same on their behalf. They are p*ss*d off and they want us to know, and their message could not have been clearly put.











They were followed by the students who thankfully didn’t let the side down and surpassed the pensioners in sound only. Both demonstrations were fantastic, you could feel people quaking in their boots around Leinster House, course the Garda presence was much heavier for the students.









So lets see what this week brings, are the teachers and parents going to descend on the Dáil in the same numbers. I sincerely hope so, I’ll be there anyway. Increasing class sizes will hit children hard, children who already have a number of stumbling blocks to overcome. Lets face it, if you have money and spend it on your child’s education, class sizes is probably not something you worry about. For the rest of us who believe that education should be free and ability to pay should not mean your child has a better education, increasing class sizes is ensuring some kids will be left behind. That could be your child.

The demonstration is on Wednesday evening (October 29th) at 6.30pm outside the Dáil to coincide with the Labour Party Private Members’ Motion on class sizes.

If you cannot come but would like to do something you can phone or email your TD (the Oireachtas emails follow the patter firstname.lastname@oir.ie) and let them know of your concerns. The phone lines to public representatives have been hopping over the last couple of weeks and it does makes a difference. So lets see what this week brings.

(As ever there are more pics from last week's demos on Flickr.)

Old People...

Ha this is brilliant and very appropriate for the week thats been in it.


more lol celebs!

Calling all single parents in Dublin North

I NORMALLY don’t do this, for reasons I have stated before, but I was so angry and disgusted about something that happened during the grey revolution demonstration yesterday (more on that later) concerning Fianna Fail TD Michael Kennedy that I have to post.



Being either brave or completely foolhardy and possessing the complete brass neck necessary to put yourself forth as a public representative Michael Kennedy strayed from the safety of the plinth of Leinster House and positioned himself at the railings where he proceeded to comment during the speakers to the pensioners around him.



He spoke of the money given to single parents and their ‘10 kids’ and, get this, ‘FREE HOUSES’. (They are actual quotes.) Seriously my daughter is 16 years old now and he is saying there are free houses, given what I said before about the trouble I have had getting onto the property ladder; I have missed out on these free houses. So where can I sign up?



Course he could be talking about those people who legitimately put their name down for a council house, because they have a housing need and are perfectly entitled to go to their local authority. Do you see that new word Michael, entitled. These ‘free’ houses also involve paying rent so in reality there is nothing free about it. And to try and basically incite prejudice using this stick is dodgy in the extreme.



I found myself doing something I don’t normally do, I went after him asking for my free house; I couldn't help myself. He needed to be pulled up on this disgraceful rant. You were heard Michael and shame on you. It is funny and possibly ironic because he ignored me, a single parent, when I pulled him up on it. Maybe he didn’t have any free houses to hand, for non-Fianna Failers anyway.



Speaking of entitlements Michael Kennedy presumably when he retires from the Dáil will do so with a large pension which he is entitled to. So while one of his suggestions to the nearby pensioners who due to the amount of people were stuck on the spot listening to his bile that money could be taken away from single parents, money to which they are entitled too. Taking that as my lead it could also be suggested that some monies could be recouped from hefty ex-TD salaries.



Once again shame on you Michael; that was quite simply disgusting behaviour, seriously disgraceful. What were you trying to do? Were you attempting to distract the pensioners’ anger away the deeds of your Government to the other members of our society who are vulnerable? That’s how it would appear to me and that is disgusting behaviour.



I was happy having asked him about my free house and being completely ignored, nothing new there as a single parent I have often felt ignored by the Government, when he was surrounded by a pack of pensioners who were having none of his blarney. I had a lot of fun snapping that.

So if you are a single parent in Dublin North, this man represents you, are you happy about that?

Feel free to link to this post, I would be delighted and so would Michael, I’m sure.

Stoneybatter

Dublinr

ONCE again I find myself apologising for not blogging before now, work has been more than hectic and has spilled over to home so I haven't had a chance to blog about the fantastic Organise Activate Influence conference organised by Cian from Irish Election with the EU Commission or indeed the excellent Irish Web Awards last weekend (yup the blog awards now have a tough act to follow).

I will do something about them over the next couple of days, short posts but sweet (I hope), in the meantime I wrote something about an exciting exhibition, Dublinr, over on Dublin Blog about a group of Dublin Flickr people who have organised an exhibition in the Joinery Gallery in Stoneybatter.

It runs from November 5th until November 9th, 11am - 6.30pm, don't miss it.

Having nun of it

I'VE a lot of work photographs to catch up on and until I do I feel too guilty to take my own. I am going to try and break this back of them this weekend (Irish Web Awards aside). But I had a moment today where I saw the photograph before I took it, then I got it and it so far ranks up there with some of my favourites.

The nun was walking down a side street in Dun Laoghaire being battered by the wind. At this stage she was near the top of the street so I picked up the camera, changed to my long lens and as she walked past I snapped three pics. The first shot was nearly the shot as her habit was flying high, but just as I released the shutter she grabbed it, in the second shot the habit was at half mast, the last was this one. Just what I wanted.

Meal for one

ACH I was making myself something to eat earlier and found myself lifting two plates out of the cupboard and of course herself is in France. Sighing I put it back.

Then I went to lift a spoon out of the drawer and it was dirty, the next was really dirty, the next was greasy, the fourth meh, finally on the fifth go, a clean spoon.

The knife and fork weren't far off either. I sighed again for completely different reasons. One of my clean-ups while she is away involves the cutlery drawer. What joy; sighs again.

MY WEE baby, ha, is off on a school exchange trip tomorrow for a week and a half to Bergerac in France, no not the Channel Islands that is Bergerac the detective you eejit :) To say we are having a stressful evening would not go far enough.

She also made plans to go to get a lift to the airport with her pal's Dad only it involved me waving her off at the house before I went to work! As if... So hopefully they won't mind that I bring her up a little while before arranged, its too late now to phone and arrange it. I want to wave her off with someone I know will get her to where she needs to be, not leave her at the house for her to make her own way, once again, as if... Unfortunately I can't bring her out myself, work is too mad and I have already taken time off to sort her out for the trip. I cannot take a morning off on our busiest day of the week. Can I stop feeling guilty about that now please?

Anyway the dog who was pacing around the suitcase earlier, she knows what it means, has now stuck her head between two cushions. And of course as soon as I tried to quietly lift out my camera from my bag, she moved. She is a dreadful model. Ah fantastic she has put it back again :)



Despite telling the Young Wan to make sure everything she needed was put to the side there has been a lot of 'where is this other shoe' or 'do you plan on bringing a coat? Currently the washing machine is washing a coat which I will somehow dry between now and the morning (once again thank the gods for central heating).

Anyway I am away back to work. Passport, check, spending money, check, no liquids in hand baggage, check. Now where is that other shoe?

Langerland does the recession

EXCELLENT Langerland does the recession.

Sitting back waiting and hoping

ABOUT a week ago I was offered a place on the Dublin City Council Affordable Housing Scheme and to be honest while there was certainly a part of me that was excited at this, another part was thinking mmmhhh.

To my unexperienced property mind this is probably not the best time in the world to be offered a place on the scheme, which is I suppose a little strange considering I would have given my eye teeth for a place before now. I have just had the feeling for a while that the way the market is going that I would probably be better off trying to save for a deposit somehow and trying my hand in the open housing market outside of the Affordable Housing Scheme.

Affordable is a bit of a misnomer for someone buying by themselves because the price isn't affordable on one salary and neither are the repayments. I am generally a positive person but have just never felt this scheme would get us our home. I'd still prefer to be in with a chance and be in the draw than out obviously.

So the place I have been offered is in a perfect area for us, even though she only has two years left of secondary education I still want somewhere near her school. The online brochure for the apartment complex looks wonderful. The apartments are snazzy and we took a run by them over the weekend and one immediate downside was apparent to me, the outside living part ie the balcony is tiny.

This is where I get frustrated because apparently being on the scheme means you have to be grateful for anything you are presented with and I am to some degree; after all this scheme is getting me closer to having a foot on the housing rung. But if I am going to commit to spending more than a quarter of a million on my first property I want it to be because I love it and can see us living there happily. Having no outside space is a deal-breaker for me.

I understand perfectly that Dublin has grown hugely over the last number of years and any housing is about density and we cannot expect houses or gardens, blah, blah, blah. While I would love a big garden, that is not going to happen sometime soon; as I said I understand that. However, I also feel whether rightly or wrongly that having lived for 14-odd years with no access to outside that I have done my time of no outside living. If there are any Gods of Justice surely they back me in my quest for a small measure of outside living, private outside living where you do not have to sit on the side of a busy main road with people gawking at you from passing buses to enjoy an evening.

But there is a notion of 'what can you expect' being on the Affordable Housing Scheme, take what you are given and be happy. Not that this is coming from the local authority, this is something I feel when I talk about it to other people. Often people with homes and gardens. But at the end of the day, this is the biggest investment I will have made to date and if I look at a balcony and say 'no' that is fine. As lovely as it would be I am not expecting a palatial penthouse spread around the side of the building balcony, just somewhere I can continue in the vein I have started here. Not that the next point is a consideration, it isn't, but what on earth would I do with all my pots? The balcony of the place we were offered would barely hold our two chairs and even then it would be a case of two people touching knees or probably the more likely scenario of actually being on each other's laps trying to sit out and enjoy an evening.

It was tiny, there is no way I could enjoy the planting I have this year at all. And is it bad for that to be a consideration? I don't think so at all. I want a little bit of outside life.

So when I went for mortgage approval and haven't been given the amount I need I wasn't disappointed. Course it gave me a lot to think about with pointers on what I need to do to finally get on the property ladder. Firstly I need to clear the loan I took out two years ago; that took a considerable amount off what the bank would give me, considerable and considering I have another three years to pay it off, that is a little scary. I think it is time to upt the photography as an extra means of income.

Another mad point for me is the fact that for some of the calculations made by the bank I pay the equivalent of the mortgage repayments in rent, this is nothing new, I have been doing that and more for years. When I moved into the last place some 14 years ago I was paying more in rent than an average mortgage at the time, a mortgage no one would have given me. But this doesn't count and as I said I understand a mortgage is worked out, among other reasons, on your ability to pay, but considering my rent is already up there, it doesn't count.

Maybe it makes sense to just me but if I am turned down for a mortgage on the bank or underwriter's belief in my ability to pay back I still have to pay rent irregardless. So I can be turned down for a mortgage with repayments nearly akin to my mortgage and I will continue to pay the rent that I have to because I have to. That part doesn't make sense to me, there has to be some consideration for that but there isn't.

And now economically things have taken a nose-dive, God knows what is going to happen. I am hoping it will all sort itself out in the wash and house prices will continue to drop enabling me to finally buy a home before the Young Wan leaves home.

Failing that I hope at the very least the Affordable Housing look at the way single parents fit or not in the scheme. Having my daughter means I have a dependent which is more black marks against me according to the bank and I am still somewhat bitter to have been excluded from the Social and Affordable Scheme because my overtime made me just over the income threshold for that year with no regard at all for my expenses relating to my daughter. The income was assessed for the year she started secondary school and the fact that cost me more than a grand meant nothing at all. So someone single with no kids who earned a few hundred less than me in the year (which amounts to about €400 in my hand spread over the year) and didn't fork out €1200 for back to school were considered while I wasn't. But thems the rules but it is something that I intent to write to the council about.

So for now all I can do is sit back and wait and hope.