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A LIMERICK MOTHER has given a harrowing account of living in substandard rental accommodation, and later going into labour in a hotel room after becoming homeless.
Last August, while pregnant with her fifth child, she went into labour surrounded by her four other children while they stayed in emergency hotel accommodation.
“So, I was in the hotel room, in one double bed, pregnant, with all the kids, in the one bed, and I went into labour. I’ll never forget it,” said Kate (28).
Last May, prior to giving birth, she said she had to make a “heartbreaking” decision to split up her children because the hotel couldn’t facilitate them in one room.
“I had no family support at the time, so I had to make a choice…to pick a child that had to go and (stay) with a friend of mine,” she said.
“I picked my eldest, Ellie, so she couldn’t come to the hotel with us. Every time I was leaving Ellie, she was heartbroken.”
“One day I looked over at Ellie and the tears were streaming down her face. It was heartbreaking. So, I snuck her into the hotel room.”
The family also spent time “couch surfing” in a friend’s two-bedroom apartment while looking for places to sleep.
I was on the couch; my three kids were in one single bed; my friend and her son were in their bed; and I had my baby in the buggy alongside me.
She said people who might think living in a hotel room is luxury, are wrong.
“We had no fridge. The milk was constantly going off. I would get fresh milk and put it outside the window at night time, so it wouldn’t go off. But, then, you’d wake up in the morning and there might be a slug in it, so you’d have to buy more milk.”
She said her children “started bed wetting” because of the trauma they endured.
“I got very depressed. I was crying all the time. I got very upset because of the effect on the kids.”
“Myself and my daughter Ellie always had a great bond. But, (then) she just wasn’t my Ellie (anymore). I felt like I was loosing her.”
“I remember my son Josh went into school and said it was his mammy’s fault they didn’t have a house. Josh still sometimes says it to me…’how come you left us homeless, living in hotels’.”
“I felt like my little family was broken.”
The mother, who said she has always tried to keep her family under one roof, said she felt massive guilt at their dreadful situation: “I felt like I was neglecting (my children). It was just horrible.”
While living in their rented home she said she could only afford to buy Spaghetti Bolognese for Christmas dinner.
After renting for two and half years in a “damp” and “mouldy” property, she said she eventually had to turn to Novas for help.
“I was shy to ask for help…but I was depressed,” the single mother from Kennedy Park explained.
Last month Novas secured a three-bedroom house for the family.
Wiping tears from her eyes, she said: “When we all sat down for our first cooked meal in the house, I could see the tears in Ellie’s eyes; She said, ‘Mum, this is what I love; this is the best part of the day; we all get to sit down and have our dinner together.”
According to Novas, the numbers of homeless are “getting worse”.
Launching it’s annual report for last year, the organisation said it had helped 557 children in Limerick and Cork, an increase of 55% in the numbers of children becoming homeless in the Munster region.
“Last year we worked with 3,552 people in total — a 47% increase in a twelve-month period. The most significant numbers appearing were children,” stated Una Burns, Novas head of policy and communications.
Behind those statistics is a child’s voice, a child’s trauma. Behind every number is a human story.
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I mean yeah the lad probably shouldnt have flown close enough to steal a chip but also Russia is quite a good deal closer to the Baltic than the USA. So close in fact that they have a seaport and a major city on it, while the USA is several thousand miles away. USAF hardly taking recon pics of fish.
@stephen: They’re doing lots of training with their NATO allies.
Maybe he was just trying to tell the yank he’d taken a wrong turn…’our submarine base is over that direction’…only sayin!
Given the content of this article any chance The Journal could also report of the NATO jet that buzzed the Russian Defence Ministers plane earlier today ?
Right up beside it and they would have known very well it was a Russian government jet.
Whatever you can say about the posturing both do with military planes involved but to send a fighter jet up to a unarmed Russian government plane seems to be delivering a slightly sinister and not so subtle message.
Did Goose get a polaroid picture of the Russian pilot?
War games
I think the the story needs to add more weight to the fact a US spy plane was operating a few minutes flying time from Russian airspace.
@Aidan O’Donovan: Russian military planes are frequently intercepted off the coast of Alaska, USA
@Diaspora’d: all about the lens your using. Alaska is off the Coast of Russia! The Baltic ain’t near any part of the US, they’re all at this all the time. No biggie
@Diaspora’d: lol Russia is only a couple of miles from Alaska
But was he inverted?
Putin and the Russians have more restraint than any other nation on earth. If the tables were reversed, WWIII would already be on…….
@Patrick Kavanagh: agreed, the US nearly brought the world to nuclear apocalypse in 1960 because the russians moved missiles to cuba, a stone from the yanks. And now nato which is basically the us are building bases and pointing missiles towards russia & they want us to believe the russians are the threat
@Frank McGonigal: ..and the US president responsible was feted and fawned over just a year later when he visited Ireland in 1963.
What was the Russian pilot doing so far from home?
@George Vladisavljevic: Probably out of Kaliningrad.
This headline is a quote from a US military spokesman. I guess it must be true then!!
At the speed they would be traveling at and with only 5′ of clearance between both aircraft all it would have taken to bring both planes down would have a a gust of wind at the wrong time, turbulence or the slightest error of movement by either pilot.
I believe it’s standard practice for all planes to use a transponder, a device that alerts other planes in the vicinity of their presence when they may not be able to see them. It’s worth remembering that no pilot wants to have another plane, commercial or military, accidently fly into them. Russian planes routinely turn their transponders off making them a risk for all air traffic.
@Rusty Balls: yet you likely believe the US spying reconnaissance plane had its on while in Russias back yard!
@Rusty Balls: at the speed they fly at transponders aren’t going to be much use even if they were on.
u wouldnt have seen US spy planes within a 1000 miles of russia 30 years ago. bloody cheek of the yanks in this case
@gregory: Their training with their NATO allies. You know, the countries that broke from the Soviet Union and have no wish to return. Why are these countries so determined to ally themselves with ‘the west’ and not Russia?
@Honeybadger197:
David Hasselhoff
@Thinck: Keep that to yourself though. Say nuthin’…
https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense/status/873260044317593600
Heres a few photos.
@Honeybadger197: A lot more than 5′ between those planes.
@Mick Jordan: Certainly is. Nice photos though. Serious selection of bombers.
@Honeybadger197: thats not it. Different plane different day.
@TeaRex: You’re 100% correct. Apologies.
@Honeybadger197: still great photos though
@Honeybadger197: Great pics. I liked the joke by USDoD in the comments as well.
@Honeybadger197: no need for apologies! They are great photos though!!
I dont see the report mentioning where exactly it happened, other than international airspace. Was it just outside Russian airspace, in which case it was the American pilot was flying too close to a Russian plane.
The Russian pilot should have gone to Specsavers…..
What’s the issue here? If Russian spy planes were flying so close to American air space you can bet your ass they would scramble fights to intercept them.
Pot, kettle, black.
@David Ronan: Its the distance they came to that the US are giving out about. It was simply a stupid thing to do. Both planes could have been brought down by the smallest error or nature.
@Mick Jordan: were the Americans stupid for shooting the Syrian plane out of the sky in Syria this week?
@Cal Mooney: Not if they were defending members of their Special Forces from attack by the Syrian Air Force.
@Cal Mooney: No they were absolutely correct.
@Cal Mooney: you’re wasting your time here Cal….America=great lads altogether, Russia=terrible lads altogether. Sure it even said it on the news. The boys know their stuff.
@Mick Jordan: They never claimed they were protecting members of their special forces but do you think it’s legally OK for a country to shoot down a plane inside that jets own sovereign territory when the aggressor has no legitimate or legal right to be there at the moment?
A nation that is not legally merited to be inside another country has no legitimate claim to use the reasoning of ‘self defence’ at all anyways. Coming legally speaking, not opinionated points of view.
@Andy Brown: sadly different rules and standards are applied to here when asserting who’s right or wrong as usual. West = good, East = bad. Asides from operating illegally without invitation by the Syrian gov., the US has for 5 years now been training, arming and supporting the ‘rebels’ fighting against the Syrian army while ensuring they’re well supplies and enforcing embargoes on Syrian forces restocking supplies. In that time ISIS got to run amuck as the army where kept busy battling western backed foreign invaders under a long changing array of names. The Syrians still and understandable see all forces as illegal and legitimate targets as any country would. The US and our media have been busy ensuring we don’t make the above association and accept US are solely there to fight IS.
Pretty s**t spy plane.
The usual shit from the war mongers . Why can’t they stay at home and kill their own .
American shit.
@Brendan Keegan: Nice abusive comment there, did you ever wonder why these former Soviet Eastern Bloc countries rush to join NATO ? Russia is there nearest neighbor yet they can’t wait to join NATO
Keeping up foreign relations. Yes, I know the finger Goose.
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