Why I am not ashamed to be drawing the dole again

Sunday Tribune, 8 March, 2008

June 1995, the sun is shining, the economy is recovering, people are smiling… and there's a cloud over my head. I am redundant and staring at the dole office in Dún Laoghaire. I'm 28 and about to sign on for the first time.
The dole office is located beside the 'Tech' college. I always thought this was a strange juxtaposition that sent out the message: "We know you're going to fail your Leaving so we conveniently plonked the dole queue a few feet away."
I wound up repeating my Leaving there in 1985 because I'd cocked up my application to journalism college.
After an all-boys private school, this was heaven. I got to sit beside girls. (GIRLS!) This concentration-drain guaranteed that I was never going to see the inside of journalism college.
Luck loves a chancer, however, and during my stint at the Tech I had my first article published in the Evening Press and landed a job as a 'junior'. Two years later I was a staffer with money in my pocket and a false sense of pride and security.
Ten years on, in June 1995, the Press collapsed and I walked out of the sunlight and into the dole office. All my grafting amounted to nothing and I was a failure. People from Middle Ireland didn't draw the dole. I was a pariah, in my own eyes at least.
It was hard to see the back of the dole queue through the cloud of Major smoke. I'd like to say I smelt the scent of defeat in the air, but I don't recall it. Just my own shame, magnified by the drabness of the surroundings. This was something some of my peers picked up on.
Although it wasn't said, drawing the dole was the final resort. It carried a stigma that ranked somewhere between banging on the poorhouse door and being named in Stubbs Gazette. You were a dosser.
The man who paid me my dole each week clearly thought this as he flung my money through the hatch. His eyes said: "Sponger."
Thursday 5 March, 2009, and the sun is shining. I'm redundant and at the dole office, signing on again. This time I have Jarlath from RTÉ's Mooney Show at my elbow, recording my thoughts.
Production journalism, from which I made 80% of my living, is being universally pared back and it was inevitable that my job as associate editor would come to an end. Last in, first out, and there are, genuinely, no hard feelings.
I am worried though: my wife has taken a 10% pay cut and this column is my only income. I am worried – but I'm not embarrassed. I have asked the Mooneys along because I want to go public about being made redundant. I am not ashamed of this. Middle Ireland still is though.
In the dole office, I spot a former neighbour who was a legal secretary. The man to my left tells me he's in IT and to my right is a luxury car salesman. There are two graduates in front of me. No one will go on the record.
Outside, Jarlath speaks to an architect who agrees that the stigma persists. So does the lady who deals with my claim. She was very sympathetic, by the way.
I tick all the Middle Ireland boxes: I have a semi-d with a crippling boomtime mortgage and a formerly comfortable life. Now I am looking for help from the state.
I went public on the Mooney Show last week to say that there is no shame in this. This is a democratic recession and everyone is being hit, from lawyers to labourers. We are all in freefall and it's vital to remember that it's nothing personal and your own worth hasn't been diminished. If you're reading this and are unemployed, don't be afraid to admit it. There are 350,000 others like us.
I hope I didn't come across as a twat on the radio, whingeing about my own situation. I don't want sympathy: there are people out there much worse off than I am. However, I am very grateful for all the kind messages I've received.
Anyway, enough of all this gloom.
Normal service will resume in this column next week. Brian Cowen, your arse is in my crosshairs.

dave@davekenny.com

Face reality, we're marching over the edge of an economic cliff

Sunday Tribune 1 March

"Jesus! Who shot you?" My friend, Andrew, was walking towards me with a bullet hole in his forehead.
"It's Ash Wednesday, you idiot," he sighed, pointing out that we had just entered the solemn festival of Lent. Forty days of fast, abstinence and whatever else you're (not) having. I had forgotten this because Lent started early this year in the Kenny household, as it did in thousands of others.
That evening, on RTÉ, I watched protestors march outside the Dáil and recalled beating a similar path 14 years ago.
The summer of 1995 was drier than Daniel O'Donnell's drinks cabinet: perfect weather for a street protest, lousy weather for a sit-in. At noon on Saturday 27 May, a lanky young hack (me) legged it down Burgh Quay, staggering under the weight of a colossal hangover. My sore head was the result of a night spent lamenting the imminent demise of my employer of 10 years, the Irish Press Group. Despite the bleariness, I was determined to take part in the unfolding events.
The background to the Press's decline is unimportant now, but, in short, we journalists believed we could save the loss-making titles, while management appeared hell-bent on closing them down. We decided to lock ourselves into the building as a protest.
In the newsroom, my colleagues had gathered around the 'night town' desk, listening to the radio headlines. On the cigarette-scarred desktops were piles of the XPress, a home-made paper we'd assembled the night before. The air crackled with nervous excitement. At 5.30pm the building was sealed and we were 'locked in'. I remember the rush of empowerment: we were finally making our stand. We would win.
Over the next four days we ate cold pizza and produced the XPress, occasionally braving the icy waters of the machine hall showers. Outside our co-workers fought the propaganda battle. Reporters' contacts books were shared and politicians and celebrities rallied to our cause. Soccer correspondent Charlie Stuart called Jack Charlton and, in a surreal exchange, we cheered out the window as the Irish team cheered back at us from Poolbeg Street. Boxer Steve Collins came too and waved his fist at us – in a friendly way. Gifts of food and booze piled up in the newsroom and well-wishers kept up a constant stream of calls.
Our band of 40 slept on the floor or on desks, scaring each other with tales of the White Lady who was said to haunt the building. We spent the days pulling all the strings we could.
On our last night, we broke into the booze and finished up having a chariot race around the newsroom in swivel chairs. Despite our situation, our morale was high for the upcoming 'second front'. The next morning we marched out as heroes, following a rally attended by 1,000 hacks outside the Dáil. Government and opposition politicians were behind us and came out to shake hands like they did with the protestors last week.
The 'second front' was waged from Liberty Hall where we edited the XPress and continued our campaign: gigging, lobbying and marching to save "our" paper.
Summer doesn't last forever though, and the evenings began crawling in. Colleagues drifted away and the public forgot the Press. It was dead. In September, we wound things up and I slipped, utterly disillusioned, into the dole queue.
We'd been naïve. There are some fights you can't win. Protest marches may make you feel better but they won't stop the inevitable. You can't stop a recession with shoe leather either and strikes will only make it worse.
Ictu is insane if it believes that withdrawing productivity will help the economy. Part of me suspects that David Begg et al are delighted to see strident trade unionism resurrected at last and are manipulating emotions to justify their existence. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the democratic right to strike, but doing it in unprecedented times like these is suicidal.
I say this with genuine sympathy for the protestors: it's better to have a job and take a cut than be on the dole. I know, I've been made redundant three times and have just taken a hit again.
Face reality, don't march away from it. Lent's just starting: there's a long way to go until the resurrection.