My name is Emma. Almost two years ago I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I am 21. Ever since I was diagnosed things have gone significantly downhill and the government agencies have been little to no help at all.
I have had extraordinarily long waits to see doctors. I have been denied illness benefit, denied a free travel pass, and still to this day do not have a medical card.
I was offered no mental health support when finding out I had this illness and what it meant for me and my future. Almost every single day I am in pain, I can’t do any extreme activities which sometimes for me is simply walking around for a day. I have had skin issues. I’ve had most of my hair fall out, and yet the HSE or any branch of the government show no sympathy or desire to help. My life has been reduced to sitting at home all day, everyday, and the help I need to get myself out of this situation is just not available to me.
It truly seems that if you are young person in this country and you have a long-term illness the government thinks it has no obligation to help you. When denied all the supports I’ve applied for the reasons coming back tend to be “you are under the age of 66” or “you are in college”. The level of care towards young people needs to change. Having to constantly fight to get any inch of help is more stressful and tiring than anyone not in this situation could know.
Emma Kelly
Co Clare
Lonely path of a live-to-work culture
Jennifer Horgan’s column — ‘I’m a working mum with family and friends, so why am I lonely?’ (Irish Examiner, June 16) — highlights social media as a major cause of loneliness in changing the way people communicate. However, the problem with loneliness and alienation is not so much the way we interact, it is to do with an obsession with work.
Our live-to-work culture is a mania, a mania of greed, status, power, control, and acquisition. We are now living in a soulless society where work totally dominates, replacing culture, community, time off to do things with friends and family, the list goes on and on. We have people feverishly working away over Christmas when it comes even though there is no need for it and then struggling to keep their relationship to their other half going. Then we have the overtime bandits who gobble up every spare moment they have devoting themselves to what has become for many ‘the religion of work’. Sunday working is almost the same now as weekday work and one shudders to see cars travelling at aggressive speeds on what should be a quiet Sunday, but instead rushing to get in a day or evening shift on what was formerly a day of rest and recuperation.
Going out on a date is the same story: work, work, work, as people bang on about their day at the office, instead of switching off, which the Irish cannot seem to do at all. It is almost a crime in this country not to work and contempt for unemployed people proves that conclusively. Ms Horgan states that even though she is married that she still feels lonely, but perhaps overlooks the impact of a pressuring career which can take her far away from herself and everybody else, notwithstanding her finger-pointing at the way people communicate.
There is also a general apathy towards politics in this country and people are refusing to get really involved in national and local life because people think that work must always come first. This brings our democracy to a standstill because there is no new blood and no new ideas, just a lot of robots trying to best each other. They like to keep their heads down and their mouths shut and will do anything for a quiet life and to marry their job. Loneliness is a very prevalent and pervasive problem in Ireland with work being king and keeping up with the rat race.
Technological communication and social media should not be blamed exclusively for the disintegration in our society. As long as the live-to-work culture exists to the exclusion of all else, accusations of fault directed elsewhere for the ‘hole in the soul problem’ are misdirected and disingenuous.
Maurice Fitzgerald
Shanbally
Co Cork
Irish identity lost at rugby international
Watching the start of the U20 men’s rugby competition I didn’t see the Irish flag but the Four Province flag with an IRFU symbol in the centre.
To cap it all of off the Irish national anthem that was introduced was not ‘Amhrain na bFhiann’ but ‘Ireland’s Call’.
What happend to our national anthem and our Irish flag?
While the English had their flag and their anthem the IRFU or those in charge decided to have neither.
Is the IRFU embarrassed by our flag and our anthem or are we afraid off offending some of our players and supporters?
Do we need to change our flag or our anthem?
Christy Galligan
Letterkenny
Co Donegal
Higher maths hunt for elusive 25 points
I am in complete agreement with Billy Ryle — ‘Time to put an end to bonus points for higher level maths’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, June 19).
My own son sat the HL Maths exam on June 9, and put a huge effort into his study, to gain those elusive 25 points. Needless to say that evening saw us dealing with a very worried and dismayed lad.
However , we discovered that the serious knock-on effect was yet to come. All day Saturday, and then Sunday, was spent on maths study, to the detriment of the other five exams he faced over the following three days. The fear of failing maths was the ultimate driving force, and the negative impact on his other subjects can only be guessed.
He now dreads the results in August and is genuinely fearful for a place on his desired course in September. How, oh how, could the State Examinations Commission (SEC) not see the possible ramifications of allowing such a challenging, abstract and different paper be set. In a time when mental health is so forcefully applied on secondary school courses I feel some of those in the SEC need to go back to school themselves.
Antoin Ó Ciardha
Gaillimh
Titan ‘explorers’ were having a lark
Clodagh Finn’s column comparing the tragic loss of life aboard the adventurous Titan submersible with other recent and past tragedies-at-sea was spot on — ' Two tragedies at sea led to two very different responses’ (Irish Examiner, online, June 23).
Her views paralleled ex-US president Obama’s words of the day before — sadness at the loss of five lives, but disdain for the press (and the public) for their callousness in forgetting the hundreds of lives lost near Greece only days before.
The universal criticism I hear on-the-streets in the US of the sensationalist ‘reporting’ in the US media is the media describing the Titan mission and its passengers as ‘explorers’. It was a lark, a foolish risk for no reason other than self-gratification. In no manner did it resemble exploration.
Sadly, as is always the case, the truly dedicated and sincere risk takers were the rescue teams that must always be compassionately dispatched to try to save these self-centered people.
The media’s obsession with foolhardy risk takers — wealthy or not-so-wealthy — tarnishes the memory of true explorers like Co Kerry’s Antarctica explorer, Tom Crean, and thousands of others like him in prior and later centuries.
Seamus Stanton
Kenmare, Co Kerry and
New Bern, North Carolina, USA
Like it if lumped
The nationwide outrage at the secret payments to Ryan Tubridy is an interesting phenomenon. Unfortunately, my experience of human nature makes me wonder how many of us would actually query an unexpected lump sum in our wages.
Aileen Hooper
Stoneybatter
Dublin 7
Politicians need higher priorities than broadcaster
The self righteous indignation on display from some of our politicans regarding the recent RTÉ payment controversy is gobsmacking.
Trust, transparency, and accountability have been tripping from their tongues this past week. Since it’s inception the national broadcaster has been an easy target for our politicians and generally makes good political headlines before they recess in a few weeks.
If the same effort, urgency and rigour was applied to their own house in addressing the hundreds of millions of misspent tax payers money annually and outlined in the Comptroller and Auditor General reports we would be in a far better place.
Paul Galvin
Minane Bridge
Co Cork
