Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

"There are many people living in comfort in who do not care about the disadvantaged

13

Comments

  • #62
    Dyr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    Sleepy wrote: »

    What does that say? Am I living in a bubble? Do I only tend to associate with those whose parents raised them rather than dragging them up?

    Living in a privileged bubble by the sound of it :)

    So would being born into a disadvantaged family be considered a poor lifestyle choice? The Noonan school of choice by the sound of it


  • #63
    Chinasea
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,568 ✭✭✭Chinasea


    Nah, don't buy the whole disadvantaged thing at all.

    There is a very good welfare system in this country. Nobody need starve. How this money is spent can be a problem and should be addressed.


  • #64
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Sleepy wrote: »
    Of the people I know who've made the effort to educate themselves, I can think of only 2 out of work at the moment (and doubt they'll be that way for long tbh). Even those I know that did apprenticeships or studied hobby subjects at third level are working, albeit not all for great money or in areas they enjoy but they're paying their way in life

    What does that say? Am I living in a bubble? Do I only tend to associate with those whose parents raised them rather than dragging them up?

    There are hard cases, yes. But let's be realistic. 2008 was FIVE years ago. If you haven't been able to find any kind of employment, start a business or upskill yourself to make yourself employable in that time, what the **** were you at tbh?

    People who make good life decisions tend to have nicer lives than those who didn't. That's fair imo. Many seem to be expected to provide those who made poor life choices with similar lifestyles to their own. While there are very few people in this world I'd happily watch starve (and being realistic, I can't ever see Bertie Ahern or his ilk ever being in that situation), it is galling to see so much of your earnings disappear when you see how poorly it's being spent: whether on over-paid public "servants", overly generous welfare payments, parish pump politics and TD's vanity projects.

    Yes, there are problems with the system. There are cracks that a small minority fall through (though anyone with positive equity in their family home wouldn't be in those numbers imo: ownership of one's home is not an entitlement) but doesn't it stand to reason that fixing the main problems (the bloated welfare rates, raft of entitlements and social acceptance of welfare fraud) might free up some cash to help the genuine hard-luck cases?


    Unless you believe in some of the more obscure Hindu religions then I cant see how the circumstances into which people are born are that of their choosing.


  • #65
    CollardGreens
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 453 ✭✭CollardGreens


    People who live in comfort have worked hard for it. There is no upper class in Ireland like in the us who have inherited millions in wealth. Most hard working people here pay a large proportion of their income in taxes.

    Rather than in the us where the rich pay hardly any taxes and the poor families live in one room in compounds run by the churches because the us government doesn't give them help. Plus if they get seriously sick. They might die as they don't have health insurance. That's struggling. Struggling isn't not bothering to get a education so you can have a job cause you wanna spend your life on welfare.

    It sounds like labour are trying to connect with the people that have voted them in. But who they have let down.


    Oh Pleezzzzz, my guess is that you are a 20yo that is totally uneducated on American laws and policies. Not only are the poor financed beautifully so is Mexico's by the taxes of ALL Americans that pay taxes, which would be aprox 50%. The other 50% are sitting on their ashes at home collecting money because most (not all) are use to being raised by the nanny state and just lazy spoiled brats that keep their legs wide open having as many babies as they can to collect more money for a larger screen TV.

    From reading this thread, Ireland is not much different than the States so stop picking on other countries and look in the mirror!


  • #66
    bb1234567
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,513 ✭✭✭bb1234567


    Tom_Cruise wrote: »
    Is there people in Ireland who are in extreme poverty?

    No, not there is not. I hate when people say something like that, try africa for extreme poverty. Nobody in western europe suffers from extreme poverty.


  • Advertisement
  • #67
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    bb1234567 wrote: »
    No, not there is not. I hate when people say something like that, try africa for extreme poverty. Nobody in western europe suffers from extreme poverty.

    Poverty is relative.


  • #68
    MaxSteele
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,109 ✭✭✭MaxSteele


    I think it's low to middle income people who are at the disadvantage. People only woke up to how handy the many couch potatoes had it when the recession hit. I think it's there which lies the lack of sympathy.

    The disposable income of 9-5 workers and spongers has narrowed considerably. It's just a mismanage of social welfare payments.

    Those who fund the welfare system are treated a lot more harshly than those who have a culture of sponging off of it regardless.


  • #69
    Smidge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,541 ✭✭✭Smidge


    hames wrote: »
    I know Smidge, but what are they doing in that mortgage?

    That couple, being LT unemployed, on that income, clearly need to be in local authority housing.

    You're joking right?
    You cant just "give up" a mortgage! You still have to pay it back even if you leave the property.
    And no-one is automatically entiltled to local authority housing and you most certainly haven't a chance in hell of getting anything if you have handed back your house.

    Even with rent allowance you must be renting by yourself for 12 months before you can apply for RA.

    They have their mortgage about ten or so years(and its not a massive mortgage)and took that mortgage while employed.


  • #70
    clairefontaine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,390 ✭✭✭clairefontaine


    I suspect in Ireland if you have the wrong address on your cv it goes straight into the bin.

    Some say the more socialist a country, the more classist it is. I definitely see their point.

    Everyone is being gowged dry in Ireland, whether through taxes, or at the petrol pump, electricity prices etc. People should be angry, but the bailouts are what is costing the taxes far more than social welfare.


  • #71
    Millicent
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,559 ✭✭✭Millicent


    This stuff about "It's the middle class who are being squeezed hardest" is, to be frank, utter bollox. I have lived on social welfare as an adult and lived below the poverty line. Fortunately, I was able to work my way out of it and now make a decent (but not spectacular) income. Do I think I have it harder now? Do I f.uck! Sure, the government takes a fifth of my income and sure that annoys the hell out of me, but I no longer spend my weeks stressing about bills I can't afford to pay, crying when another one comes in and I have to go into the social welfare officer only to be treated like a piece of dirt and turned away, or living in isolation because I haven't the cost of a bus fare or a cup of tea out with friends.

    Anyone lamenting that the middle classes have it worse (bar some exceptions) needs a sense of perspective.


  • Advertisement
  • #72
    clairefontaine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,390 ✭✭✭clairefontaine


    Millicent wrote: »
    This stuff about "It's the middle class who are being squeezed hardest" is, to be frank, utter bollox. I have lived on social welfare as an adult and lived below the poverty line. Fortunately, I was able to work my way out of it and now make a decent (but not spectacular) income? Do I think I have it harder now? Do I f.uck! Sure, the government takes a fifth of my income and sure that annoys the hell out of me, but I no longer spend my weeks picking about bills I can't afford to pay, crying when another one comes in and I have to go into the social welfare officer only to be treated like a piece of dirt and turned away, or living in isolation because I haven't the cost of a bus fare or a cup of tea out with friends.

    Anyone lamenting that the middle classes have it worse (bar some exceptions) needs a sense of perspective.

    The problem is not that social welfare is generous, it's that working is too punitive. Between prsi, taxes, universal social charge, the cost of private health insurance, cost of getting to work [petrol] it becomes hardly worthwhile for people and with the euro getting so little value for money in Ireland, that it doesn't go that far, people are busting their asses for homes they are about to lose or in negative equity, people who studied and worked hard and are still scrounging the change jar at home to feed their kids. This is what is happening now.

    But this is because of CORPORATE WELFARE, not SOCIAL WELFARE.


  • #73
    stevenmu
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,688 Mod ✭✭✭✭stevenmu


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    but from reading some of the posts of some luckier people on boards I dont think they get that not everyone has it as easy as they do.

    This attitude really fcuking annoys me.

    When I was young my parents were poor, piss poor, borrow money to put food on the table poor. 90% of my clothes were hand-me-downs from cousins. The 10% that weren't were the cheapest of the cheap. We had to move a good distance away from my relatives, from where my parents grew up because they couldn't afford to rent near there, let alone buy there. My dad worked two jobs and went to college in the evenings just to try and improve our situation. My mam worked when she could too. They both worked their asses of to provide a better life for us. And I'm delighted that now with myself and my siblings being more or less self-sufficient, that they are able to live in some amount of comfort. They both still work but they can afford some of the nicer things in life for themselves, they've earned it far more than most people.

    I worked hard in school, I had to, if I couldn't get a scholarship there was no way I could have gone to college. Luckily, free 3rd level education came in before I finished secondary school. But I still had to work a job all through college to support myself, while working hard at college to get a good degree. When I finished I went out and got a job, and worked damn hard at that to progress my career. I've moved on to other better paying jobs, and I've worked damn hard at those too to keep progressing my career, while working hard to improve my skills and qualifications.

    So fcuk your "luck". It wasn't easy and it's not easy now. I make pretty good money now, and live pretty comfortably, but I've worked hard to get where I am now and I'm working hard to keep myself here, just like my parents did and still do.

    I know that there are genuinely disadvantaged people, who for one reason or another are genuinely unable to work or earn a living. I know there are also hard working people who are genuinely down on their luck, and just need a little helping out until they can get back on their feet. And I'm happy and quite proud that the taxes I pay can help them out a little.

    But I'm also very sick of spongers who can't be arsed working hard, who don't want to put any effort into life and into improving themselves, moaning because some of us have more than they do. I work hard for everything I get. If you want more than what you have now, get off your ass and work for it and stop expecting me to work even harder to give it to you.


  • #74
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    stevenmu wrote: »
    This attitude really fcuking annoys me.

    When I was young my parents were poor, piss poor, borrow money to put food on the table poor. 90% of my clothes were hand-me-downs from cousins. The 10% that weren't were the cheapest of the cheap. We had to move a good distance away from my relatives, from where my parents grew up because they couldn't afford to rent near there, let alone buy there. My dad worked two jobs and went to college in the evenings just to try and improve our situation. My mam worked when she could too. They both worked their asses of to provide a better life for us. And I'm delighted that now with myself and my siblings being more or less self-sufficient, that they are able to live in some amount of comfort. They both still work but they can afford some of the nicer things in life for themselves, they've earned it far more than most people.

    I worked hard in school, I had to, if I couldn't get a scholarship there was no way I could have gone to college. Luckily, free 3rd level education came in before I finished secondary school. But I still had to work a job all through college to support myself, while working hard at college to get a good degree. When I finished I went out and got a job, and worked damn hard at that to progress my career. I've moved on to other better paying jobs, and I've worked damn hard at those too to keep progressing my career, while working hard to improve my skills and qualifications.

    So fcuk your "luck". It wasn't easy and it's not easy now. I make pretty good money now, and live pretty comfortably, but I've worked hard to get where I am now and I'm working hard to keep myself here, just like my parents did and still do.

    I know that there are genuinely disadvantaged people, who for one reason or another are genuinely unable to work or earn a living. I know there are also hard working people who are genuinely down on their luck, and just need a little helping out until they can get back on their feet. And I'm happy and quite proud that the taxes I pay can help them out a little.

    But I'm also very sick of spongers who can't be arsed working hard, who don't want to put any effort into life and into improving themselves, moaning because some of us have more than they do. I work hard for everything I get. If you want more than what you have now, get off your ass and work for it and stop expecting me to work even harder to give it to you.


    I think I have to clarify regading my use of the word luck. I got to where I am with very hard work as did you and several others on this thread. When I talk about luck I talk about the ones who inherited wealth in the form of money and/or better schooling and other advantages. I am not comparing luck hard work in anyway. Also when I talk about disadvantaged I refer to people trying to find work and trying to educate themselves. I have no time for those who want to live off the state but I think people like that are few.


  • #75
    Dyr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    stevenmu wrote: »
    The 10% that weren't were the cheapest of the cheap. We had to move a good distance away from my relatives, from where my parents grew up because they couldn't afford to rent near there, let alone buy there. My dad worked two jobs and went to college in the evenings just to try and improve our situation.

    At the risk of sounding like a monty python sketch if you grew up in the eighties in this country and had parents who were renting privately and working you were very unlike most other poor families of that era.


  • #76
    Smidge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,541 ✭✭✭Smidge


    stevenmu wrote: »
    This attitude really fcuking annoys me.

    When I was young my parents were poor, piss poor, borrow money to put food on the table poor. 90% of my clothes were hand-me-downs from cousins. The 10% that weren't were the cheapest of the cheap. We had to move a good distance away from my relatives, from where my parents grew up because they couldn't afford to rent near there, let alone buy there. My dad worked two jobs and went to college in the evenings just to try and improve our situation. My mam worked when she could too. They both worked their asses of to provide a better life for us. And I'm delighted that now with myself and my siblings being more or less self-sufficient, that they are able to live in some amount of comfort. They both still work but they can afford some of the nicer things in life for themselves, they've earned it far more than most people.

    I worked hard in school, I had to, if I couldn't get a scholarship there was no way I could have gone to college. Luckily, free 3rd level education came in before I finished secondary school. But I still had to work a job all through college to support myself, while working hard at college to get a good degree. When I finished I went out and got a job, and worked damn hard at that to progress my career. I've moved on to other better paying jobs, and I've worked damn hard at those too to keep progressing my career, while working hard to improve my skills and qualifications.

    So fcuk your "luck". It wasn't easy and it's not easy now. I make pretty good money now, and live pretty comfortably, but I've worked hard to get where I am now and I'm working hard to keep myself here, just like my parents did and still do.

    I know that there are genuinely disadvantaged people, who for one reason or another are genuinely unable to work or earn a living. I know there are also hard working people who are genuinely down on their luck, and just need a little helping out until they can get back on their feet. And I'm happy and quite proud that the taxes I pay can help them out a little.

    But I'm also very sick of spongers who can't be arsed working hard, who don't want to put any effort into life and into improving themselves, moaning because some of us have more than they do. I work hard for everything I get. If you want more than what you have now, get off your ass and work for it and stop expecting me to work even harder to give it to you.

    And you're a Mod of "Spirituality"??:D


  • #77
    hames
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 295 ✭✭hames


    Smidge wrote: »
    You're joking right?
    You cant just "give up" a mortgage! You still have to pay it back even if you leave the property.
    Well hopefully the personal insolvency legislation will change that in a formal way, but apparently banks are reaching deals with distressed mortgage holders. You can "give up" a mortgage, by many accounts, especially in cases like this where you say it is a small mortgage, but where it is having a disastrous effect on the couple's finances.


    This couple have been long term unemployed for four years now. That'snot their fault, but they cannot expect the state's undeniable obligation to meet their basic needs to also include paying off their mortgage.
    And no-one is automatically entiltled to local authority housing and you most certainly haven't a chance in hell of getting anything if you have handed back your house.
    Where are you getting that idea from?

    The criteris is based on housing need; obviously if you cannot repay your mortgage, and are left with no realistic option to leave the property you've had a mortgage for, you have a genuine housing need.


  • #78
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,909 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    People I feel sorry for are those who suddenly have proper hardship. That doesn't include someone who can't afford a foreign holiday btw. The "underclass" that exists in Ireland is pretty much self-perpetuating. My family was broke when I was growing up as neither of my parents were working but we managed fine and 2 of the 3 kids are in a goo university on the way to getting good degrees. Luckily my parents' lack of work wasn't just down to work-shyness (eh? :pac:) so we didn't get that passed along like so many people we went to school with who have ended up as pretty much archetypal scroungers.


  • #79
    AngryHippie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,625 ✭✭✭AngryHippie


    He might have a point :rolleyes:


    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056881417


  • #80
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    StillWaters wrote: »
    Yes

    We are actually quite a right wing country.
    O'Cuiv has a cheek though hasn't he?

    Well on a personal level Eamon has made many contributions to very deprived areas in inner city Dublin. He has saved a lot of people from a life of drugs and crime and many people have been able to progress to third level education because of him.


  • #81
    mikemac1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Well on a personal level Eamon has made many contributions to very deprived areas in inner city Dublin. He has saved a lot of people from a life of drugs and crime and many people have been able to progress to third level education because of him.

    Eamonn O'Cuiv represents Galway West.

    Are you thinking of someone else?
    Aodhán Ó Ríordáin?


  • Advertisement
  • #82
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    CollardGreens wrote: »
    Oh Pleezzzzz, my guess is that you are a 20yo that is totally uneducated on American laws and policies. Not only are the poor financed beautifully so is Mexico's by the taxes of ALL Americans that pay taxes, which would be aprox 50%. The other 50% are sitting on their ashes at home collecting money because most (not all) are use to being raised by the nanny state and just lazy spoiled brats that keep their legs wide open having as many babies as they can to collect more money for a larger screen TV.

    From reading this thread, Ireland is not much different than the States so stop picking on other countries and look in the mirror!

    So, when you say people don't know abouut US politics and then post that are you being ironic, stupid or just plain lying?

    50% of the US is not sitting at home doing nothing. That is obvious to anyone with even a few brain cells.

    the 50% figure you are quoting is the figure Mitt Romney spouted during that secretly filmed fundraiser

    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/mitt-romneys-47-percent-pay-income-taxes/story?id=17263629

    Edit: BTW, the reason a lot of those people don't pay taxes is because of republican tax cuts.
    http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001547-Why-No-Income-Tax.pdf


  • #83
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    Eamonn O'Cuiv represents Galway West.

    Are you thinking of someone else?
    Aodhán Ó Ríordáin?

    Aodhn is another hero of mine who is currently fighting to remove the two tier education systen but eamon set up a program to be implemented in deprived communities. It has helped people in some areas hugely. I think it was called a rapid program.


  • #84
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Lou.m wrote: »
    It's worse than that some actively despise them. Not all of course but some. Or they will simplify it . When mummy and Daddy pay for luxuries they fool themselves into thinking they did it alone. Those who make it rich from poverty never forget, my father made it from nothing. He would be offended if i did not care about those who are from a poor background or was a snob. But really i have no experience of poverty i sympathize but i would not know how to help unfortunately.

    People actively avoid the poor and discriminate against them. They are suspicions of them not all well off feel this way but some.


    I love you Lou.m :). That post hit the nail on the head. When people talk about privilege and how some people are unaware of the problems many disadvantaged people have as opposed to people who got handed everything the talk of begrudgery comes up.

    A person who is sent to the best school and given an advantage in life is going is a world away from someone who worked to the top from nothing. The perspective of both is also different.

    I admire people like you and your father lou, people who are aware that it is tough for others.

    My agenda, if you can call it that is to highlight how hard people from deprived backgrounds have it in relation to third level education and social mobility.

    A guy I demonstrate labs too was missing days and labs so I sent him an email asking was everything ok. I knew he was formerly in care because his mother and father were drug addicts and I told him I had lived in poverty before so he could confide in me. He told me he hadnt come in to college because he had holes in his runners and his socks were soaking wet. He couldn't afford new runners or socks as he's on the grant and rents aswell. He cant get social welfare because he is trying to better himself in college he just gets a small amount from the college welfare fund in a lump sum.

    This is who I refer to when I talk about disadvantage. Not someone who as an f-ing house bought for them with no intention of working! This guy is a really clever guy who is in the college library today.

    He works alongside people who get large sums of money from parents to go out drinking. He competed with them for places in college while going to a **** school with uncaring teachers while they went to a good school with great student-teacher ratio. Basically when talk people who dont care about disadvantage I talk about people who say stupid things like "education is free for everyone and we all do the same test at the end of the day". It's this attitude that keeps disadavantaged people down. An attitude that doesn't recognise the difficulty people like that student went through to get to college in the first place. He should be in college while a lot of the better off frankly shouldn't be.

    People talk about bittnerness towards sw recipients (and as I mentioned earlier I am angry at some of them) but another shower of people who are bitter are people who work hard in education, who come from a deprived background and struggling every daylight hour to feed themselves and study, and have to put up with lectures from people who went to better schools stating "we all do the same test, sure college is free,. It's no more difficult for someone coming from a disadvantaed background."


    More taxes wont solve this. A redistribution of wefare and a education on the part of those who werehanded a start in life that there is people out there who have it a lot tougher than them. Because everyday in ucd I hear the most bile filled ignorance regarding poor students. Better off people dont seem to think people dont choose to be poor.


  • #85
    mikemac1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    What's a deprived area?

    Ballyfermot has a college, large garda station, pitch n'putt, basketball, multiple pitches and parks, computer skills club, rugby and football clubs, coffee mornings and meetings for the unemployed, huge FÁS centre, boxing club and I could keep going.

    The only big loss I can think of is the library was closed and moved to the far smaller civic centre. Which got highlighted on Joe Duffy with a lady screaming discrimination about Ballyer.

    I don't remember any of this in the midlands as a young 'un :confused:
    Were we deprived?

    Pumping money into selected areas but if someone can't succeed it's their own attitude they need to look at, not crying foul about D4


  • #86
    repsol
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 754 ✭✭✭repsol


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    What's a deprived area?

    Ballyfermot has a college, large garda station, pitch n'putt, basketball, multiple pitches and parks, computer skills club, rugby and football clubs, coffee mornings and meetings for the unemployed, huge FÁS centre, boxing club and I could keep going.

    The only big loss I can think of is the library was closed and moved to the far smaller civic centre. Which got highlighted on Joe Duffy with a lady screaming discrimination about Ballyer.

    I don't remember any of this in the midlands as a young 'un :confused:
    Were we deprived?

    Pumping money into selected areas but if someone can't succeed it's their own attitude they need to look at, not crying foul about D4

    Dead right! Every local authority housing estate has to have a very expensive playground provided yet they are NEVER provided in private developments.I am sick of hearing scroungers from certain areas moaning about the "lack of facilities" for kids in their area.I grew up in an area which had no facilities either.We entertained ourselves playing football on the road,playing kerbs,names,kick the can, rounders you name it.We did not decide to become heroin addicts or rob an old persons home because there was no youth centre provided.The underclasses in this country have a sense of entitlement to free everything that is bred into them by their scrounger parents.If you want the best things in life,you should have to earn them,not fill out a form at the welfare office.


  • #87
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    What's a deprived area?

    Ballyfermot has a college, large garda station, pitch n'putt, basketball, multiple pitches and parks, computer skills club, rugby and football clubs, coffee mornings and meetings for the unemployed, huge FÁS centre, boxing club and I could keep going.

    The only big loss I can think of is the library was closed and moved to the far smaller civic centre. Which got highlighted on Joe Duffy with a lady screaming discrimination about Ballyer.

    I don't remember any of this in the midlands as a young 'un :confused:
    Were we deprived?

    Pumping money into selected areas but if someone can't succeed it's their own attitude they need to look at, not crying foul about D4

    I grew up in the midlands and there was all of the above. Except computers. It was the 80's though.


  • #88
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    repsol wrote: »
    Dead right! Every local authority housing estate has to have a very expensive playground provided yet they are NEVER provided in private developments.I am sick of hearing scroungers from certain areas moaning about the "lack of facilities" for kids in their area.I grew up in an area which had no facilities either.We entertained ourselves playing football on the road,playing kerbs,names,kick the can, rounders you name it.We did not decide to become heroin addicts or rob an old persons home because there was no youth centre provided.The underclasses in this country have a sense of entitlement to free everything that is bred into them by their scrounger parents.If you want the best things in life,you should have to earn them,not fill out a form at the welfare office.

    So, upbring and enviroment has absolutely no affect on people?


  • #89
    repsol
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 754 ✭✭✭repsol


    Grayson wrote: »
    So, upbring and enviroment has absolutely no affect on people?

    It does.Letting kids see their parents be professional scroungers is not a great example.Most of them go straight into the family business and cannot wait to start claiming for everything they can.We need some people to be poor to encourage hard work.NOBODY in Ireland is poor in the proper sense because they are paid too much social welfare.I have heard idiots on Joe Duffy moaning about the sacrifices they are making because they are "poor".They then give examples such as not being able to pay for dancing classes for their kids or not being able to afford VHI.These people don't know what poor is.


  • #90
    The King of Moo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,207 ✭✭✭The King of Moo


    "Facilities" aren't really that important. They're used by some as as excuse for anti-social behaviour ("There's no facilities Joe"), and as an excuse for complaining about anti-social behaviour by others ("They've got plenty of facilities Joe, they've no excuse").

    But you can't go to an area with deep-rooted problems with drugs and violence and throw some playgrounds and tennis courts at the people there and expect them to drop their drugs and knives on the spot.

    You have to take a deeper, less populist approach. In the past, kids in poorer areas made do with playing football on the street and playing on greens and so on, yes. But to use this as a stick to beat the modern poor with is very misguided and entirely misses the point of how different growing up in a poor area is now compared to the past. And I know, because I grew up on an unglamorous council estate playing hide and seek and kerbs. The reason I didn't get into heroin is not because I'm morally superior to today's entitled poor subhuman vermin. It's because my parents, despite both leaving education after primary school, had meaningful work to do. They were far from rich but they could end the day with a feeling of satisfaction knowing they'd done something worthwhile and provided for their children.
    And of course there was unemployment, but there was always the prospect of meaningful work to be done.

    But to leave education before secondary school and live on a council estate now is a very, very different experience. In practical terms, you can't expect to get fulfilling work without at least having done the Leaving Cert as easily as in the past. And the economic shift away from manufacturing means there's fewer fulfilling low-level jobs out there.
    Couple this with the more overt snobbery towards the poor (and in fewer cases, those who work the low-level jobs some of them might do/be able to do) and you foster a culture in which those who might be able to avail of a little social mobility don't want to do so, because they don't see themselves as being part of the world of the middle-classes.
    It's a little bit like a businessman telling a homeless person to clean themselves up and get a job. They might theoretically be able to do that without great difficulty, but to believe it's easy for a homeless person to do so is to be pretty naive and ignore all the societal and psychological factors which make it an incredibly hard thing to do.
    Likewise, it might seem easy for someone to decide not to be unemployed and go try to find unskilled work or do a course to learn some skills, but for many people it's not.

    You also can't ignore the drug issue, particularly the increase in middle-class drug use. One might like a few lines of coke of a Saturday night, but that doesn't come from nowhere and a lot of drug use and violence in poor areas comes from the drugs trade, often supplying "respectable" middle-class people. This makes it even harder to take the difficult route out of disadvantaged areas when there's a more glamorised way to earn some money and peer respect.

    Of course all of these things lead to vicious circles. Normalised drug use and violence, hopelessness, a sense of being looked-down upon and a sense of a lack of fulfilling employment lead to people being born into circumstances in which they take such things for granted. That doesn't mean it's impossible for someone from such a background to make something of themselves, but it's a lot harder for them than someone who's born into the privilege of middle-class Ireland.

    So while it might be nice to think that it's all the fault of the poor people for not pulling their socks up and getting themselves a nice little place with some good road frontage, it's not that simple.
    That's why I don't proffer any solution to the problem of disadvantage and declining social mobility in Ireland, but I know whatever the solution is it's a complex one which involves changing deep-seated attitudes and prejudices (across all classes) and treating people like complex human beings.


  • Advertisement
  • #91
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    What's a deprived area?

    Ballyfermot has a college, large garda station, pitch n'putt, basketball, multiple pitches and parks, computer skills club, rugby and football clubs, coffee mornings and meetings for the unemployed, huge FÁS centre, boxing club and I could keep going.

    The only big loss I can think of is the library was closed and moved to the far smaller civic centre. Which got highlighted on Joe Duffy with a lady screaming discrimination about Ballyer.

    I don't remember any of this in the midlands as a young 'un :confused:
    Were we deprived?

    Pumping money into selected areas but if someone can't succeed it's their own attitude they need to look at, not crying foul about D4

    I use the term disadvanteged person as oppossed to area where I can. disadvantaged person would be one born into neglect, poverty, abuse or an orphan. A person who is disadvantaged rI egarding education. A person might live in an area with high drug use and or low social mobilty as a result of a combination of the above factors. Now I dont mean to give you an ill answer mikemac but a lot of the uncaring attitudes arise from people saying "I dont see what people are complaining about, they have great facilities". The student I mentioned in the class with holes in his runners has comments lile this directed at him from time to time"


Advertisement
Advertisement