Maria is on Jobseekers' Allowance of €200 a week. She told Joe Duffy on Liveline that from that €200 she has to pay for electricity, insurance, tax. Most weeks, she says, she doesn’t have enough to eat. And the price of everything, it seems, is going up at a phenomenal rate. Maria has no time for Junior Finance Minister Seán Fleming, who, on RTÉ Radio 1’s Drivetime, appeared to advise people to shop around instead of complaining about prices. And when Joe says that no one in this country is going to tolerate someone going without food, Maria is quick to respond:
"The government are tolerating it. They don’t have a clue."
Joe wonders if there isn’t any agency that Maria can turn to because, he says, she shouldn’t be going without food.
"Well, most weeks I am, Joe, because I have bills, I have rent. And I mean, it’s just crazy."
Maria’s waiting to go onto Disability Allowance. And Joe is clearly worried about her. While acknowledging that she can advocate for herself, he says that she shouldn’t have to. Is there anyone, Joe asks, who can take up her case? The answer is predictably disheartening:
"No. I can talk, but no one listens. It’s just that no one is listening. I can ring your TDs and they can promise you, but they’re not doing anything. I mean. I’ve done it all. It’s got to the stage where I’m almost begging."
Maria described how she spends her winter days sitting in the cold with a hot water bottle, sparing the heat and the water so the electricity bill doesn’t go up.
"People don’t realise how bad it is out there. They really don’t."
People don’t see how desperate the situation is, Maria says to another caller, John, who was wondering why more people aren't working when so many shops have signs in their windows looking for staff. He’s full of sympathy for Maria, but she tells him he’s not living in the real world:
"You don't know what people are suffering. You say, 'Oh get up and get a job.’ A lot of people are out there with mental illness. They really are. Just ‘cause you can see us walking past you and we smile and say hello, it doesn’t mean – you don’t know how we’re feeling inside and how hungry people are and how cold people are. You have no idea."
Hearing Maria getting emotional talking to John and Joe makes for uncomfortable listening, especially when she says that there are thousands like her, hungry, cold and unnoticed. You can hear Joe’s full conversation with Maria by going here.