**MOD NOTE UPDATED**Limerick woman complains about living in 3 bed house with 4 kids

The King of Moo

whatdoicare wrote: »

Not if they can't pay for it!!! She can't afford them!!! How can you keep missing this point?

I'm not missing the point, because your point is based on presumptions about her.

You're also factually wrong: people can have as many children as they want in Ireland. How do you not know that!?

Can you tell me that she's long-term unemployed, and that she doesn't intend to work in the future, and will never be able to afford to raise her children?

Can you tell me she had five children knowing that she'd be an unemployed single mother?

Just lay out all the facts you have about her, and tell me why we should all be outraged by this single case.

gurramok

forfuxsake wrote: »

15% unemployment and rising. you could all be next.

The vast vast majority of female unemployed do not try to have kids in order to get a council house. They would take up work if it was offered tomorrow.

The anger here is understandable, alot of couples are struggling to afford children while careerist single mothers\welfare couples get that house for free along with lots of benefits while the country is broke in the hands of the IMF.

Logical Fallacy

whatdoicare wrote: »

So, please tell me - what way would the story be different? She has four children and no money to pay for them - she made the choice to keep going and have another - how can you turn this into a story where she becomes a responsible person?

Sure, she may have have one accident - but five?

Noone is that uneducated. Social workers would have had the talk with her about contraception and offered to help arrange it for her.

If her living conditions were unacceptable she should not have gone on to have two more pregnancies.

I believe I have every right to have feelings of anger and resentment towards her - I want a family and can't afford one.

To be fair, it's this "I want a family" mentality that is really at the root of the issue. People demand the right to have children whether they can afford to look after them or not.

I have a huge amount of respect for yourself and your partner based off your earlier post in this thread, I think you were faced with a very tough decision where you had to balance your desires with reality. I'm sure it is not an easy spot to be in but I really hope that things work out for you guys and you get to start your family soon.

El Weirdo

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Long term unemployed should be made do council jobs like sweeping roads...

But then the council workers currently employed to do that would be unemployed. What happens then? Wait until they're long-term unemployed and kick the other lot out and let the council workers back to do their old job? Am I to take it that this will continue on some sort of rotationary basis ad infinitum?

whatdoicare

The King of Moo wrote: »

I'm not missing the point, because your point is based on presumptions about her.

Can you tell me that she's long-term unemployed, and that she doesn't intend to work in the future, and will never be able to afford to raise her children?

Can you tell me she had five children knowing that she'd be an unemployed single mother?

Just lay out all the facts you have about her, and tell me why we should all be outraged by this single case.

Can you tell me that she isn't? Where's your proof that she's looking for work?

She moved into her council house when she had three children and then moved onto have two more while in that situation - noone AND I MEAN NOONE genuinely looking for work and to better themselves would do something so stupid!

Ridiculous statement - you are grasping at straws.

Doom

Do the maths, she has been after a bigger house for five years, back then she had only 3 kids because 1 is only 18months old......so she wanted a 4 bed house for 3 kids

Feck that she should have been given free rubbers and a biology lesson.

howamidifferent

Born to Die wrote: »

There is more to the article than the opening line. The LL is another rag that is imo trolling this story from both angles.

Whether she has 10 children or 1 she is entitled to a safe house to raise the children. The housing in alot of Moyross is poor quality and the reason the regeneration was started and more or less abandoned as our Government bail the banks.

She's entitled to nothing if she wont work for it! Why should she get for free what working people cannot get with their own hard earned money....???
It's providing people like her with handouts that's robbing the rest of us working tax payers.. Meanwhile she has her libraries and parks and street lighting paid for by house owners "household charge". I'm all for supporting someone who falls on hard times but not anyone who decides to make it a lifestyle choice then complains their not getting big enough handouts...Should be left to her own devices after child 2. :mad:

LimGal

The King of Moo wrote: »

I'm not missing the point, because your point is based on presumptions about her.

You're also factually wrong: people can have as many children as they want in Ireland. How do you not know that!?

Can you tell me that she's long-term unemployed, and that she doesn't intend to work in the future, and will never be able to afford to raise her children?

Can you tell me she had five children knowing that she'd be an unemployed single mother?

Just lay out all the facts you have about her, and tell me why we should all be outraged by this single case.

The reason we are all outraged is because this story struck a chord with alot of people.Probably because we all know several people like her who even in these economic times are still milking the system.

mickrock

Serinna is a devout Catholic and doesn't believe in contraception.

forfuxsake

gurramok wrote: »

The vast vast majority of female unemployed do not try to have kids in order to get a council house. They would take up work if it was offered tomorrow.

The anger here is understandable, alot of couples are struggling to afford children while careerist single mothers\welfare couples get that house for free along with lots of benefits while the country is broke in the hands of the IMF.

It's not the anger itself but the direction of the anger We know little about this woman, not her hopes or her dreams or her circumstances.

I wonder how many people as children grow up with the idea of being a *sponger* rather than a doctor or a nurse for a fireman or a teacher or a writer or work in childcare or be a hairdresser or whatever it may be

. I have taught thousands of children in my life and asked each and every one of them what they would like to be when they grow up and not one has ever said unemployed.

Why would someone grow up with that goal? If they did it is hardly their doing either.

gurramok

gurramok wrote: »

The vast vast majority of female unemployed do not try to have kids in order to get a council house. They would take up work if it was offered tomorrow.

The anger here is understandable, alot of couples are struggling to afford children while careerist single mothers\welfare couples get that house for free along with lots of benefits while the country is broke in the hands of the IMF.

its understandable but misguided imo offer her up as a sacrcficial cow if you want but i for one dont think its outrageous to expect her to live in a house which is unsafe fo her children .

The statistics on this forum show how much of a small minority she actually is the general anger towards her would again in imo be better directed at the actual scum ( the bankers are morally corrupt polictitions) who have got us into this mess in the first place .

Logical Fallacy

LimGal wrote: »

The reason we are all outraged is because this story struck a chord with alot of people.Probably because we all know several people like her who even in these economic times are still milking the system.

Not really, i think a lot of people are just outraged because they don't think too hard about things.

Hell, i dislike kids, hate the entitlement concept people have with regard to having them and genuinely am annoyed by folk who get themselves into situations they shouldn't have been in financially and could have avoided with a bit of planning.

That said, I'm just going off the facts as presented and to me it's two main things.

1) The woman was entitled to complain about the state of the house when she moved into it.
2) The woman should not have had more children after moving into the house.

I don't know about her husband, I don't know about her work history so i am not mentioning them and I don't feel the need to insult her and call her a slut.

People get outraged on the internet because they can, not necessarily because they should. I've seen one poster in this thread give valid reasons as to why they would be posting emotionally and even then that person is doing nothing more than discussing the issue and defending their points.

Chuck Stone

Can anyone offer any solutions to prevent such situations that don't punish innocent children?

Logical Fallacy

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Can anyone offer any solutions to prevent such situations that don't punish innocent children?

Condoms.

Daisy M

forfuxsake wrote: »

15% unemployment and rising. you could all be next.

With one huge difference, we will already have contributed to the exchequer and the ambition will be to do so asap. People who have good values and are capable of work are not happy spending any length of time on the dole. There are many people working full time who would be equally if not better off on welfare who choose to continue to work. If this woman was working it would have been written in the article, if the house was in bad repair there would be lots of photographs to prove the point. If there was one father to all the children his name would have been mentioned even if he was too camera shy for the photo opportunity. Basic cop on teaches you to realise that when facts are ommitted from a story its because those facts arent good and wont draw the required sympathy.

token101

stoneill wrote: »

The house is not habitable - it should be.

Course it should. If it's unsafe fix it by all means. But an extension/new house? No. You had more kids. That's a choice you made. Deal with your choices and accept the consequences.

Dubit10 wrote: »

Some of the comments on here are a flipping disgrace. Yes the woman has made mistakes (who has'nt) but the way some people pass judgement is shocking.

Don't think people are passing judgement. She can have 50 kids if her body can handle it for all most people care. The problem is when you come back to everybody else and look for handouts to facilitate your choices.

The King of Moo wrote: »

Which is exactly the reaction the newspapers want

Probably, but it's an irrelevance really unless it's factually inaccurate. If so, fair enough, anger's unwarranted. But if not, you have a woman who can't stop getting pregnant coming to the rest of society with a begging bowl. Which is fine. As long as we're equally entitled to tell her where to go. It's less to do with the actual money in this one case and more to do with a) the potential precedent it sets for people with 2 kids now looking to 'upgrade' and b) the message it sends to the people who actually earn what they get. It's fundamentally unfair that someone is handed a bigger house when a lot of people in society, who are essentially paying for this lifestyle, can't afford similar. It's totally wrong, and no amount of 'her background', 'she made a mistake' alters that simple fact.

So at what point does society stop providing then? If she has 5 more kids, does she get another house? Is there a cut off point? How far should society go to provide for people who seem unable to provide for themselves because of their choices? Because for me, asking for more when you already have a 3 bedroom is repugnant. I'd imagine it is to anyone who scrapes together money they've earned to pay bills, pay for their own kids, etc. That's where the anger comes from. From this inflated sense of entitlement driven by a welfare dependent sector of society where enough is never enough.

The King of Moo

whatdoicare wrote: »

Can you tell me that she isn't? Where's your proof that she's looking for work?

She moved into her council house when she had three children and then moved onto have two more while in that situation - noone AND I MEAN NOONE genuinely looking for work and to better themselves would do something so stupid!

Ridiculous statement - you are grasping at straws.

No, I can't, and I have no great interest in finding anything out about her.

Which is why, unlike many people, I'm not making any assumptions about her.

She might be an evil never-contributed, lazy b*tch who's going to raise her kids to be feral little monsters.

She might be an angel who's fallen on hard times but is going to struggle on on moxey, grit and the One Family Parent Allowance alone.

More than likely, she's a complex combination of positive and negative characteristics, like most people.

I don't really care, because whichever category she might fall into, she represents a tiny minority of people in the country, and her social welfare payments aren't costing taxpayers much.

I do care about the fact that she seems to be living in substandard accommodation.

I do care about the fact that so many people get easily wound up by newspapers into venting vile hatred against a section of society which suffers disproportionately from poverty, while our government hits us with increasingly absurd austerity measures.

Originally posted by Lim Gal
The reason we are all outraged is because this story struck a chord with alot of people.Probably because we all know several people like her who even in these economic times are still milking the system.

How many do you know? I don't know any, unsurprisingly, as there are few such people in the country.

micropig

mikom wrote: »

Anyone know if she has started to take in washing to help pay her way out of her predicament and make a safer life for her children?

That page of the paper would have been an ideal platform for her to advertise her business

golden lane

the simple answer..is.....if the state takes money off a working person...whether they employed or unemployed......to feed a mans family.....and that man (the father/s
of the children ) will not work.....when work is available

that can only be classed as state enforced slavery........

Chuck Stone

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Condoms.

Don't think that'd have much of an impact tbh.

mikom

Maximilian Flaky Nose wrote: »

imo be better directed at the actual scum ( the bankers are morally corrupt polictitions) who have got us into this mess in the first place .

Going around pricking condoms with a pin were they?
Weakening the elastic on knickers with a hacksaw so they fall off easier perhaps?

shopaholic01

mickrock wrote: »

Serinna is a devout Catholic and doesn't believe in contraception.

She will however turn a blind eye to a spot of recreational fornication - purely for the purpose of procreation.

smokedeels

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Hell, i dislike kids, hate the entitlement concept people have with regard to having them and genuinely am annoyed by folk who get themselves into situations they shouldn't have been in financially and could have avoided with a bit of planning.

I do think some people need to chill a bit in regards to the amount they spew out, but I can't understand why somebody would dislike kids

token101

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Can anyone offer any solutions to prevent such situations that don't punish innocent children?

Legalise abortion and disincentivise having children you can't afford.

Logical Fallacy

Daisy M wrote: »

With one huge difference, we will already have contributed to the exchequer and the ambition will be to do so asap. People who have good values and are capable of work are not happy spending any length of time on the dole. There are many people working full time who would be equally if not better off on welfare who choose to continue to work. If this woman was working it would have been written in the article, if the house was in bad repair there would be lots of photographs to prove the point. If there was one father to all the children his name would have been mentioned even if he was too camera shy for the photo opportunity. Basic cop on teaches you to realise that when facts are ommitted from a story its because those facts arent good and wont draw the required sympathy.

Out of interest what makes you think that would have happened? The papers spin things all the time, offering just enough to get folk outrage.

Hell, a major newspaper recently went with a story that was basically fabricated, got a TD to comment on it and the end result was that TD issuing a public apology because he was just that wrong about the way he handled things after it came to light the story was largely skewed.

I find it amazing that you think the media wants to generate pity for anyone, when pity doesn't sell.

Battered Mars Bar

howamidifferent wrote: »

Meanwhile she has her libraries and parks and street lighting paid for by house owners "household charge".

Not only that but who's funding the Moyross Regeneration Project? Household charge? you're paying for that 4 bed house she wants so bad.

smokedeels

token101 wrote: »

Legalise abortion and disincentivise having children you can't afford.

It's going to happen soon, population control is the next political hot potato imo

micropig

smokedeels wrote: »

I do think some people need to chill a bit in regrades to the amount they spew out, but I can't understand why somebody would dislike kids

Elves freak them out:p

token101

forfuxsake wrote: »

Seriously, some of the stuff on here is truly amazing. Some people say Ireland was a horrible place in the Celtic tiger but the recession has created some monsters.

What do you want to see
Workhouses?
Labour camps?
Enforced sterilisation?
Enforced exile?
Compulsory terminations for pregnancies among the unemployed?

15% unemployment and rising. you could all be next.

When I read this thread I couldn't help but think of Maurice Ogden's hangman.

http://homepage.mac.com/steveklein/hangman.html

Personal responsibility?

banie01

token101 wrote: »

Legalise abortion and disincentivise having children you can't afford.

The lady in question in the OPs article is devoutly catholic and fiercely anti-abortion.

LimGal

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Not really, i think a lot of people are just outraged because they don't think too hard about things.

Hell, i dislike kids, hate the entitlement concept people have with regard to having them and genuinely am annoyed by folk who get themselves into situations they shouldn't have been in financially and could have avoided with a bit of planning.

That said, I'm just going off the facts as presented and to me it's two main things.

1) The woman was entitled to complain about the state of the house when she moved into it.
2) The woman should not have had more children after moving into the house.

I don't know about her husband, I don't know about her work history so i am not mentioning them and I don't feel the need to insult her and call her a slut.

People get outraged on the internet because they can, not necessarily because they should. I've seen one poster in this thread give valid reasons as to why they would be posting emotionally and even then that person is doing nothing more than discussing the issue and defending their points.

I think its pretty infuriating that not only did she have two more kids to put pressure on the council to give her a bigger house but now she has the cheek to come out in the paper trying to put even more pressure on the council seeing as plan No. 1 didnt work!Its absurd!The mind really boggles that she thought she would get sympathy from this act.I really hope its a case of talent skips a generation for her kids sake!

Chuck Stone

token101 wrote: »

Legalise abortion

Fair point.

and disincentivise having children you can't afford.

That's the hard bit. Some people are just not amenable to disincentives.

I know of a person who had 7 children and she only managed to hang onto them for a couple of months - every single one was taken into care.

Granted that's probably a rare enough case but still..

golden lane

banie01 wrote: »

The lady in question in the OPs article is devoutly catholic and fiercely anti-abortion.

so am i.....for a house and all that money..

smokedeels

banie01 wrote: »

The lady in question in the OPs article is devoutly catholic and fiercely anti-abortion.

WIJWA

fasttalkerchat

banie01 wrote: »

The lady in question in the OPs article is devoutly catholic and fiercely anti-abortion.

but had 5 immaculate conceptions?

whatdoicare

The King of Moo wrote: »

No, I can't, and I have no great interest in finding anything out about her.

Which is why, unlike many people, I'm not making any assumptions about her.

She might be an evil never-contributed, lazy b*tch who's going to raise her kids to be feral little monsters.

She might be an angel who's fallen on hard times but is going to struggle on on moxey, grit and the One Family Parent Allowance alone.

More than likely, she's a complex combination of positive and negative characteristics, like most people.

I don't really care, because whichever category she might fall into, she represents a tiny minority of people in the country, and her social welfare payments aren't costing taxpayers much.

I do care about the fact that she seems to be living in substandard accommodation.

I do care about the fact that so many people get easily wound up by newspapers into venting vile hatred against a section of society which suffers disproportionately from poverty, while our government hits us with increasingly absurd austerity measures.



How many do you know? I don't know any, unsurprisingly, as there are few such people in the country.

I know of one family personally where the girl had six children - she did it all on purpose - four different fathers. The government are paying for everything and she's living pretty comfortably- she has a much nicer house than mine. She has never worked - she has been pregnant since she was 19.

I know of but not personally at least five other families - the fathers of the original girl all have families with these five other women. The fathers pay for nothing - the girls don't work - the council provides housing.

Daisy M

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Out of interest what makes you think that would have happened? The papers spin things all the time, offering just enough to get folk outrage.

Hell, a major newspaper recently went with a story that was basically fabricated, got a TD to comment on it and the end result was that TD issuing a public apology because he was just that wrong about the way he handled things after it came to light the story was largely skewed.

I find it amazing that you think the media wants to generate pity for anyone, when pity doesn't sell.

Well she has a facebook page promoting her cause surely she would have put them up? The naievity of some posters astounds me, everything about the interview points to this woman been a scrounger who is trying to further her cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

The King of Moo

LimGal wrote: »

I think its pretty infuriating that not only did she have two more kids to put pressure on the council to give her a bigger house but now she has the cheek to come out in the paper trying to put even more pressure on the council seeing as plan No. 1 didnt work!Its absurd!The mind really boggles that she thought she would get sympathy from this act.I really hope its a case of talent skips a generation for her kids sake!

Where did you find out that that was her reason for having the two kids?

mikom

mikom wrote: »

Going around pricking condoms with a pin were they?
Weakening the elastic on knickers with a hacksaw so they fall off easier perhaps?

no but they were going around messing everything up with crimmal decisions and corrupt deals which have in essence bankrupted the country and have left us all so skint and scared that when a story like this emerges the reaction is burn her at the stake because of course she is the enemy not them .
as another poster pointed out the media know the state the countries in they know what sells papers like the man who got evicted from his house . give the mob what they want sacrificial cows its these spongers/ rich feckers who screwed it all up for us.

i am not conviced that giving this woman a house fit to live in is a worse use of my taxes than the 125,000 carpet cork county council just put in their offices.

Battered Mars Bar

forfuxsake wrote: »

I have taught thousands of children in my life and asked each and every one of them what they would like to be when they grow up and not one has ever said unemployed.

Why would someone grow up with that goal? If they did it is hardly their doing either.

The same kids say they'll never drink, do drugs. Kids are stupid and shouldn't be taken at face value.

token101

banie01 wrote: »

The lady in question in the OPs article is devoutly catholic and fiercely anti-abortion.

So don't have unprotected sex and get pregnant with lots of different people then. She has chosen to have all of these children knowing she must provide for them. But I'd be willing to bet her attitude was, 'well the state will pay, so might as well sure'. A theory borne out by the fact that she is pregnant again and looking for more.

LimGal

The King of Moo wrote: »

Where did you find out that that was her reason for having the two kids?

Come back to planet earth mate!:rolleyes:

Cuddlesworth

stoneill wrote: »

The news paper article misleads the issue.
It doesn't matter if it is a two, three, four of five bedroom house, the issue is about the house being habitable. Minimum standard is required, especially for kids and that minimum standard has not been reached.

I personally do not agree with state handouts for career single mums, why are the dads not helping support their own kids. Anyway - that's beside the point.

The house is not habitable - it should be.

I said this early on in the thread and I'll say it again. It is extremely unlikely that she moved into the house with either of the issues described by her. They would have been post habitation and most likely vandalism by the tenant's themselves.

The ones who know how to work the system trying things like blocking heating vents, rigging water tank stopcocks/overflows and creating dangerous wiring because they feel the house isn't good enough. And councils tend to put tenant damage on the long foot when it comes to repairs. Considering that a fair portion of council tenants demand that every single thing that goes wrong in their "provided" houses be fixed they are always over stretched in that regard.

I worked in that job for two years and I was sickened to my core by the sheer stupidity of the long term scroungers. It made me sad to see the children get treated so badly and it being the only life they would see till it was too late.

forfuxsake wrote: »

. I have taught thousands of children in my life and asked each and every one of them what they would like to be when they grow up and not one has ever said unemployed.

Why would someone grow up with that goal? If they did it is hardly their doing either.

It seems to be around the 10-13 mark where they give up hoping. I spoke to several young girls around 15 years old who were both sexually active and hoping to get pregnant in order to get their own council house and get away from their parents. After meeting the parents you could hardly blame them.

hairyprincess

whatdoicare wrote: »

I know of one family personally where the girl had six children - she did it all on purpose - four different fathers. The government are paying for everything and she's living pretty comfortably- she has a much nicer house than mine. She has never worked - she has been pregnant since she was 19.

I know of but not personally at least five other families - the fathers of the original girl all have families with these five other women. The fathers pay for nothing - the girls don't work - the council provides housing.

It amazes me how much people claim to know to be absolutely certain about others :rolleyes:

The King of Moo

whatdoicare wrote: »

I know of one family personally where the girl had six children - she did it all on purpose - four different fathers. The government are paying for everything and she's living pretty comfortably- she has a much nicer house than mine. She has never worked - she has been pregnant since she was 19.

I know of but not personally at least five other families - the fathers of the original girl all have families with these five other women. The fathers pay for nothing - the girls don't work - the council provides housing.

I agree that people like that are terrible, but I'm positive that there aren't that many people like that, and the facts and figures seem to back me up.

If people like that could be discouraged from acting in such a way it would be great, but only if it didn't negatively affect those in genuine need of assistance.

I just think that the level of outrage regularly expressed against single mothers on AH is wildly disproportionate to the negative effect people like you described have on public finances, and much of the ire is aimed at single mothers in general, who are a diverse bunch.

banie01

Quote:
Originally Posted by banie01 View Post
The lady in question in the OPs article is devoutly catholic and fiercely anti-abortion.

token101 wrote: »

So don't have unprotected sex and get pregnant with lots of different people then. She has chosen to have all of these children knowing she must provide for them. But I'd be willing to bet her attitude was, 'well the state will pay, so might as well sure'. A theory borne out by the fact that she is pregnant again and looking for more.

Your quoting my reply to another poster out of context.
I was giving her reasons
Not agreeing with them or in any way trying to justify them.
Frankly I think its irresponsible and immature to pump out kids and rely on the state to provide a bedroom for every sprog

Just to add, the lady in question is married.

The King of Moo

LimGal wrote: »

Come back to planet earth mate!:rolleyes:

Brilliant response, and the rolleyes are the icing on the cake!

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

Can you link to the facts behind your assertion about a person you don't know?

Daisy M

hairyprincess wrote: »

It amazes me how much people claim to know to be absolutely certain about others :rolleyes:

It amazes me how people refuse to see what is under their nose!:rolleyes:

whatdoicare

hairyprincess wrote: »

It amazes me how much people claim to know to be absolutely certain about others :rolleyes:

Well, I do know her personally - I grew up with her. I see her almost weekly. She told me all this herself. She even announced recently that her mother officially adopted one of the children so that she could get an extra carers allowance. She is also planning to be pregnant again by next Christmas at the latest.

whatdoicare

The King of Moo wrote: »

I agree that people like that are terrible, but I'm positive that there aren't that many people like that, and the facts and figures seem to back me up.

.

In fairness the figures you gave me there previously didn't back you up at all - I actually though the figure would be much lower.