It’s late Friday afternoon and I can’t get the post that I read earlier this week on boards.ie out of my head. This was tweeted around and eventually was locked by the websites moderators no doubt fearing where it could end up. Be it someone taking their own life or the bad publicity they might receive.

There are many who know me but few who know my full situation since being made redundant from a very well paying role I started my own company which I shut down early 2012, not due to poor cash flow but due to no cash flow and clients and companies just refusing to pay or unable to pay and going out of business them selves.

I don’t even have the luxury of Social Welfare to fall back on as the Irish State seem to punish people like me the self employed entrepreneurs who try to make a go of things. the kind of people who will eventually be responsible for getting Ireland back on it’s feet.

The last year as been tough, I have being drawing on every skill I have gathered over the years from things as diverse as Outdoor Education to trying to make a new path in all things digital. To say I say this is difficult is an understatement but I’m more the sort to try make the most of things than to stand stop and moan.

I’m a strong resilient person who will always survive! It’s just in me, I have my parents to thank for that, growing up in Ireland during the 80′s means all this is no stranger to me. That said there are times when I read stories like the one below and I wonder how much difference is there between this man and my life today. Sadly the veneer is not as thick as some may think.

Ireland has lost many things in recent years, many billions of Euros but the most valuable thing of all is our compassion as a people, I see the flippancy of people every day…..

This is an account of my life on the dole and which seems to contradict what many think, particularly media commentators.

I have been unemployed for three years. I have 460 job applications items in the job applications folder of my email account. I am tired. I am weary. My heart and soul is gone. I exist. Since December I’ve had to start taking anti-depressants for the first time in my life. I live alone. I haven’t had a face to face conversation with another person since Christmas. I am well educated (master’s degree) and I used to be a bright, outgoing, positive person – now I’m just a shell who sits alone and often cries from sheer loneliness, isolation and despair. I’m a 39 year old grown man, 6ft3, very presentable, articulate but seemingly useless and a burden to the State. I’m also useless according to recruiters and job agencies, most of whom don’t even respond to my applications or phone calls. The majority of jobs I apply for I wouldn’t have looked at five years ago but I’m no longer even good enough for these. Perhaps, like the certain elements of the media and the State, they think I’m lazy or thick or both.

I am so tired of the negative commentary from Government Ministers and various media commentators about lazy unemployed people not bothering to look for work and preferring to remain on the dole. I depresses me to the point where I just feel like crying and these days I often do. I worked since leaving college when I entered the Civil Service as an AO. I held down a number of very well paid jobs after leaving the CS. I have found life on the dole to be a nightmare. Signing on, queuing in the post office like a beggar, attending CWO clinics – completely alien to me in every way, shape and form – soul destroying. They obliterate one’s dignity – standing in a queue, blocking the street every fourth Tuesday to sign on, like a Dickensian beggar at a soup kitchen.

A few days ago I received a letter from the CWO/HEO with a rent supplement review form. My landlord cannot reduce the rent to the level required and nor should he – I’m paying less than the open market rent – the apartment next door was let to a working person last month for €25 per month more than presently I’m paying. This will be the second time since 2009 I have to move because of reductions in rent supplement levels and each time I’ve moved it has been to increasingly shabby accommodation. This time, however, there is not one single property on daft.ie at the newly set rate – not one! Even if there was, I don’t have access to a deposit and a month’s advance rent. I have contacted the Local Authority and they’re absolutely useless – in fact worse than useless. These are the same Local Authorities who are going to lead enterprise development – some hope! They told me they would house me in a men’s shelter if the worst happens! The rent review laughably asked for details of “all bank accounts” – I don’t have a bank account anymore – that’s where I’m at! If you’re on the dole you cannot be trusted to have it paid to your bank account – you have to stand like a mug in the post office.

I cannot afford to heat where I live – it’s electric storage heating and I’m already in arrears with my electricity bill. I never go out to socialise – the only luxury I allow myself is the gym which is a necessity more than a luxury. Most days I take my 16 year old car and drive to a lakeside car park where I have a coffee, read and listen to the radio. I often stay there until 11pm because I can run the car and keep warm, following which I return home and go to bed. If I don’t do this I just stay in bed because I have nothing else to do.

I see no hope – none whatsoever. I see a certain sector drawing enormous salaries, pensions, expenses, etc and living lavish lifestyles, while many others struggle to stay warm, to keep a roof over their heads and eat properly. I turn 40 on Feb 27th. I’m a neat, tidy person and mathematically minded – I’ve purchased a hose pipe and duck tape and it is my plan, on that date, to terminate my time on this earth. Quite simply I see no hope and I CAN’T take anymore of the relentless hammering, negativity and isolation. Instead of being helped by the Department of Social Protection and Government, I am being harassed and threatened. In over three years on the dole I have never once been contacted by any government body, other than to cut, cut, cut. I’m done.

So, after 27th February there will be one less person on the dole, one less person dodging employment, one less person trying to live under the rent supplement scheme, one less person being treated like a beggar by the State to which they once contributed thousands in income tax. I hope it will make a difference to some bottom line because I can tell you that I no longer make any difference to anyone. This is the truth of my reality, the reality of life on the margins of the social spectrum! I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a great one and I have little to be moaning about so I’ll stop – soon.

Am I depressed like the writer of the boards.ie post, I don’t know, I don’t think so. To be honest a trip to the doctor these days is a luxury I can’t afford. I do not mean to sound dramatic but in the last year I have being draining the last of my savings and €60 for a doctor visit just is not a justifiable expense when there more important things that need paying.

I know there are many in my situation and worse, I have friends who have gone to the depths of China to try make a go of things for themselves and are branded all sorts of things. Emigration looks like it is the only path left for me and my small family, this is not a choice I want to make or to be correct it’s not a choice at all but a necessity.

Ireland’s greatest resource is its people, if we continue to go as we are they will all be gone. Be it to another country or the end of a rope the results will be the same. Ireland will die.