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The cost of travelling to work is becoming unsustainable
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I remember before I got a mysterious pain in my side that was to turn to 3.5 years of hell I used to look st those grey train tickets "social welfare return" "€0.00" going to and from work and college and it made me angry, until I realised only three v specific groups get them. I know there's a type who use welfare as a lifestyle choice so I'm trying not to get angry reading this, but I'm just honestly bowled over at the sheer level of ignorance on this topic, but it's not the ignorance per say that gets me its:
1. People basing v strong assertive opinions on this ignorance like they're the one sane person in the room and it's so obvious, even though they've all the basic facts wrong
2. That it's so easy to check basic things before forming opinions (like going to citizensinfornation online to see if jobseekers get FT passes) ..,and they don't do it!...but then go on to have these intense opinions on it![Deleted User] wrote: »Are you the only worker who pays train fare or are you having a pop at those who may be genuinely unable to either work or get work?
However, I DO agree that they should only be allowed travel offpeak or like the UK system, only within a certain radius of their home. Should they need to travel at peak times or outside this radius, they should be able to claim pack a portion of their travel costs.
Sitting on ones backside on the dole is torture for one used to and willing to work.
There's no real logic to limiting the distance traveled on FT passes it doesn't cost any more for them to go longer
Keep in mind lots of people living in the countryside must travel to regional centres in the cities for hospital appointments
We tried the peak hour restrictions they were removed for a good reason they didn't work. For example Mary's told to be at the hospital for 8am, "I can't my Pass won't work can you give me an afternoon clinic", so she gets a 2pm slot, but delays mean she's not seen until 3:30 and now she must either sprint to the bus stop to make it before the time or wait 3 hours to go home, since she's only 2euro in her purse
You may laugh, but that's the way it is for some, living on €188 with bills, rent, food all squeezed into that is not easyNOBODY in the UK, (except for retired rail staff and staff members travelling on their own franchise's trains) gets free travel. I work in the industry and regularly get offered Irish free travel passes and am treated with beligerence as to why they have to pay !!!!
1. ......and? The US can bill you 100k for a 3 day ER visit and drowns students in tuition fees, should we just because they do?
2. YES THEY DO depends where you live they also give discounted travel to many groups we don'tIn Ireland OAP's don't realise how good they have it...all I ever hear is whine whine whine incessantly. I think it's great they are well treated but i'm firmly of the opinion it is at the expense of young people and middle income workers. Who effectively see 0 benefit to paying huge taxes.
Yep zero benefit other than:
1. Publically fubded primary, secondary and fee free third level education
2. Mostly free healthcare with medical cards being phased in for everyone
3. Police protection
4. Various welfare payments that go to the young like illness pay, jobseekers, SWA, children's allowance...
We don't get as much as the rest of the EU but it's not nothing
We all pay into the pot and WE ALL take from it at various points in our lives to various extents, most of those old people paid far higher taxes than we do now back in the 1980s, 60% on the average wage at one pointWrong...state pension payments come out of current expenditure. Their taxes funded pensions of the past, which were far lower
They also funded your education, healthcare, and the children's allowance that helped buy your books, shoes, food.....Theres plenty of scumbags on the Luas that have free travel passes that dont look disabled.
Some of them make a bit of money on the side dealing drugs on the Luas.
Total slap in the face to the honest worker.
How do you know by looking at someone? They could have anything wrong with them. I think we solve that problem by excluding anyone from a pass with a criminal conviction
Someone might not look disabled in the cartoonish way you imagine it but may still be, their illness could be mental, many serious conditions today have treatment so non invasive it wouldn't be obvious looking at someone they had say cancer0 -
To correct also the outrageous claim of the poster who said you can casually go to a hospital say you're suicidal and get an FT pass needs a reply of its own
You ought to withdraw such a shameful post it downplays the seriousness of depression
Here are all the obvious reasons why that wouldn't happen:
•You'd be put on a psych hold for days and probably be given anti anxiety drugs like Valium and given a minder to sit beside you. Suicidal ideation is considered a medical emergency on par with an MI they won't let you just casually sign a few forms then send you home, in fact if they think you might harm yourself the Emergency Room staff have a legal duty to detain you
•Disability Allowance is for conditions that have lasted over a year so anyone with no prior record suddenly being suicidal would be either hospitalised or put on meds by their GP and referred to a psychiatrist not put on disability. They might, if they need to take time off, be put on illness benefit no FT pass comes with that
•To get disability you need to be diagnosed with a specific condition with a specific diagnostic code and have to be clearly demonstrating the DSM criteria for that condition, bluffing it and getting past a GP, welfare officer, medical assessor and a state doc you may be referred to would be quite the accomplishment
•You must fill out a 6 page medical report (separate to the GPs one) giving detailed answers to specific questions about how specifically your condition stops you doing xyz
•It's not enough to have say a mental illness, lots of working people have some form of mild depression (the words grossly overused though and confused with what should be called low mood) it has to ALSO interfere with your basic daily functioning like work socialising etc
•Unless your disability is permanent you have to estimate how long you think it will be for you to recover, then a review date by an independent doctor will be scheduled, you're subject to observation without notice at any time by a welfare inspector to ensure your behaviour matches your reported condition
•If you get past all that the waiting time for application to be processed is about 20 weeks
I don't know what sane person would do all that, fake an illness, study up on a specific illness to fake it (which you'd have to do ) , drop work in a country where average wage is about €600 a week after taxes, for an income of €188 just to get Free Travel. So for the sake of dropping €400 a week you've saved at most the maximum all services leap card cap of €40..,and you must engage in an elaborate charade risking fraud charges to do it.
As someone who is recovering from cancer and crippling depression that came with it I can tell you all that the pass made a huge difference to me, long term sick and seniors are often isolated which exacerbates their health
After my diagnosis the fear of death and how people would react made me isolate myself. All social media shut down, stopped seeing friends, id go days without leaving the house, which added a serious mental health problem to the physical one
Aiming to be back working and college in January having the pass encouraged me to end that isolation and get out again, this will sound absurd because it's not logical but despite recovering from physical illness the depression and isolation almost ended in suicide. Switching from illness to disability more recently that pass came with it and I started to get out again
I hadn't socialised in nearly three years, no hanging out with friends, no cinema or pubs or clubs no sport...nothing and I mean nothing. NOTHING . This is not eggageration. I saw one friend now and then kept in vague touch with the rest by iMessage...oh yes I have an iPhone it was a gift by that friend for making it another year I didn't buy it with my welfare millions and I apologise for committing the crime of owning modern tech while disabled, I dunno where I got the nerve.
It costs less than 1/10th of 1% of the budget and has huge benefits for that. Cutting my lifeless body down from a tree followed by an investigation (suicides are considered homicides apparently until they demonstrate otherwise) or wheeling me into an emergency room and burning time and drugs trying to get me back would have cost way more than provisioning me with the card, as would hospitalising me it was going one way or the other before a v simple bit of plastic with a chip in it broke a downward spiral.
There aren't workers and leeches there's just people, we all contribute to the well we all drink from it at some stage. Yes yes there's the welfare lifers but surely we can deal with them without throwing the 90% genuine s out?
I worked from the time I was 10 (which may have been illegal
) until this hit, I paid tax and USC and PRSI just like you, and when I'm paying them again I've no problem with them putting your kids through school and college (as they will) paying your pension, sick pay, A&E admission, children's allowance or anything else.
We're a society, none of us are pure contributors who get nothing back. Sorry to get so personal but you guys casually have these discussions in the abstract and make seeeping suggestions maybe a reminder was needed that real human beings are on the other end after you walk away from the laptop or put the phone down.0 -
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