Spanish family robbed in Cork - Appeal for basic help!

Solair

A Madrid family who'd moved to Cork to try and make a new start were robbed and basically left without any possessions !

The stress also caused the mum to go into early labour.

There's an appeal for any baby items and basic necessities.

Not a nice welcome to Cork & not a very nice situation to give birth in either.

Examiner article : http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2013/0426/world/charity-appeal-to-help-spanish-couple-229534.html

If anyone can help out, I'd say it would be hugely appreciated.

charlemont

Would be a help if the journalist actually named the hostel. If its the one near me than it shouldn't be too hard to solve as there are a few sneaky cameras hidden around here. I'd like to teach these cúnts a bit of neighbourhood justice...Actually it could be a coincidence a top scumbag is back in the area in the last few days.

Tombo2001

thats dreadful, I hope they get lots of help.

evilivor

Gardaí investigate ‘Spanish’ expectant couple

Gardaí were last night trying to verify the identities of a pregnant ‘Spanish’ couple whose plight triggered a massive response following a major charity appeal.

It follows a Garda investigation yesterday into the couple’s claim that they had been robbed of their possessions while staying in a hostel in Cork earlier this week.

A senior garda spokesman confirmed last night that detectives spoke to the couple — who spoke Romanian to each other — late yesterday afternoon.

He said gardaí are now satisfied that no such crime or robbery, as alleged by the couple, occurred. He said there has been no complaint from the couple to gardaí about such an alleged crime, and that no complaint will be forthcoming.


The people of Cork responded quickly and dropped off dozens of bags of baby clothes and equipment to help the family.

St Vincent de Paul was involved and hotels offered accommodation.

However, there are now concerns that the charity may have been duped.

Solair

Very strange stuff!

Their nationality is irrelevant, it would be ab awful situation for any family to be in but I'm very annoyed if it actually didn't occur and a lot of us have been duped!

Pretty horrible (if true) that someone would just prey on the good nature of a small city. All that would do is harden people's attitudes towards helping strangers in a crisis in future.

That story got significant retweeting and traction on social media, primarily because it was in the Examiner. One would assume it to be "Cork's paper of record".

Can't really be sure what the actual story is now!

At least any donations went through actual charities and will reach someone needy.

I can assure you it'll be the first and last charity appeal I ever RT or post on a forum until it gets 24h + of fact checking !

ABajaninCork

If the Examiner story's true, then it's a real shame. If anything like this happened again, then people would think twice about giving. I know I would. It's horrible to be so cynical as to try to con people.

Solair

I'd just point out that there lots of Romanians living in Cork and Ireland in general who are professionals, working in all sorts of industries and are extremely upstanding members of the community who would be as horrified by this as the rest of us are.

I count several Romanians among my friends and I've worked with quite a few Romanian colleagues and even had a Romanian lecturer who was one of the most outstanding lecturers I had during my masters.

I've also worked with contractors and professionals based in Romania who were absolutely excellent do deal with.

So please, lay off the anti-Romanian line. It's rather unfair and quite xenophobic.

It's no different to the Finns getting outraged at the Irish when they'd issues with a a few people from a certain minority group who are from Ireland (and Britain) who headed over to Finland to do some tarmacing and roofing jobs...

Mr Simpson

Grand Moff Tarkin wrote: »

Romanians at it again the thieving f**ks and trying to con the good people of Cork.

What does it matter where they're from? Scum can be from anywhere.

Nothing like a bit of casual racism on a Saturday morning

bladebrew

Very odd story, the family had an Eastern European name but claimed to be Spanish and who the hell moves their whole family into a hostel and then attempts to get work in country with fairly high unemployment,
When I first heard the story on 96fm I was suspicious, and doing crap like this will only make the Irish even more racist,

Solair

Just to illustrate why the story seemed believable :

It's perfectly possible that they moved here from Spain. You don't have to be Spanish to be from Madrid ...

I know quite a few people who've made crazy & reckless moves due to economic circumstances. Things in Spain are pretty dire at the moment and there are job possibilities in IT companies, customer care etc for native Spanish speakers willing to work for a multinational here.

>27% unemployment, serious cases of negative equity etc I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some Spanish people made a leap like that. It's really not much fun over there anymore and you get struck off the dole after a few years there too. So circumstances can be really horrendous.

Admittedly most people would be more planned about such a move and not bring kids initially but stranger stuff happens!

Just a point.

Rest of the story doesn't stack up though and the Gardai don't seem to be buying it.

Truth can be stranger than fiction in these times if European economic meltdown.

One Spanish friend of mine was laid off, no redundancy and left without 5 months wages just to give you an example of how bad things are.

They'd continued to work with all sorts of payment promises as they felt they were better off to keep a job even if pay was uncertain !

They're now facing forced emigration pretty much and have a mortgage and kids.

España is a social disaster in the making! Ireland's actually in drastically better circumstances right now and actually does have jobs for native level speakers of other languages due to all the multinational company presence here.

They're jobs that won't go to Irish people anyway because they only want 100% fluent / native speakers but, these people will be paying tax and spending money here so for us, it's a net benefit.

Their being available also keep companies here too.

bladebrew

It's that terrible 96fm that called them Spanish, they actually said Spanish family then introduced the guy with a heavy Eastern European accent it didn't sound right from the start,

Solair

bladebrew wrote: »

It's that terrible 96fm that called them Spanish, they actually said Spanish family then introduced the guy with a heavy Eastern European accent it didn't sound right from the start,

The media outlets ought to have done better research !

Just underlines why you can't slim down news outlets to having almost no staff and then expect the quality to remain high.

Takes big resources to check facts.

kart

Solair wrote: »

I'd just point out that there lots of Romanians living in Cork and Ireland in general who are professionals, working in all sorts of industries and are extremely upstanding members of the community who would be as horrified by this as the rest of us are.

I count several Romanians among my friends and I've worked with quite a few Romanian colleagues and even had a Romanian lecturer who was one of the most outstanding lecturers I had during my masters.

I've also worked with contractors and professionals based in Romania who were absolutely excellent do deal with.

So please, lay off the anti-Romanian line. It's rather unfair and quite xenophobic.

It's no different to the Finns getting outraged at the Irish when they'd issues with a certain minority group who are from Ireland (and Britain) who headed over to Finland to do some tarmacing and roofing jobs...

Just to comment on what you said - Romanians are generally ok, same like any other nationality.

Whom most people here talk of as romanians are actually the ones also known as European Roma's. They are actually not romanians, although they mainly live in areas of Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria.
They are separate ethnic group, travelled to Europe about 1400 years ago from South Asia, their forefathers are known as "dalits".

Threse are the ones who beg on streets, steal, thieve and lye through their teeth. At least in Ireland i am pretty sure there is not a single working Roma.
It just isnt something they do.
Instead they make a bad name for romanians whos country majority of Romas are coming here to from and who actually have nothing to do with this ethnic group. They are two different nationalities and generally they dont even move in same circles in their own country.
I feel sorry for real romanians who have to put up with that misunderstanding of two nationalities every day.

All romanians who i have come to contact with have been great people. I havent yet met a Roma who would be pleasant and honest. Possibly there is some out there, i just havent met any.

Thats all i wanted to say... Just commenting on your comment really.

Solair

There's actually quite a large, very integrated ethnic Roma population in Southern Spain who are just part of the cultural melange that makes up Spain.

The problems are caused because the Roma were treated extremely badly over the decades/centuries and are totally socially marginalised in certain countries including many Western European countries eg Germany before and during WWII.

The EU really needs to deal with helping them to integrate, get access to education and become un-marginalised.

It's not going to be dealt with any other way.

There's little being done at the moment.

You're basically looking at the consequences of a long, long period of racism and social exclusion.

There's no point in trying to ascribe behaviour to ethnicity/race. It's all about circumstances.

Change the circumstances and within a few generations there won't be a problem.

It's going to have to be dealt with at an EU level because they're nomadic across loads of countries.

evilivor

Grand Moff Tarkin wrote: »

Romanians at it again the thieving f**ks and trying to con the good people of Cork.

I'm really glad that Irish people have never, ever committed fraud or stole anything. Anywhere.

The Hill Billy

Going nowhere. Temp locked for local mods to take action later.

tHB

beer enigma

Thread to stay locked permanently & lessons learnt all round by the sounds of it.


http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/cork-charity-apologises-after-getting-story-wrong-in-appeal-for-help-592812.html