Former car mechanic Michael Meere (47) has multiple disabilities since a motorbike crash and two subsequent bicycle accidents.
The Co Clare man had hopes of one day owning his own garage and home.
His injuries however have left him with compressed nerves in his spine, plates and pins in his cervical vertebrae and mobility challenges. He has complex pain syndrome and experiences headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, fatigue and he has epilepsy.
These have left him with limited work possibilities and living on an invalidity pension of €249.50 a week. He also gets the household benefits package of €34.50 a month, and a fuel allowance which this month increased from €33 to €38 a week for 28 weeks a year, paid until April.
RM Block
“These rates added together and divided by 52 gives me, up to now €271.14 a week on average across the year. I live with my mother who is near retirement age. She is on a minimal enough wage as a factory worker,” he says.
“The amount of money I receive does not suffice whatsoever. It goes nowhere to be honest. But for my mum helping me I wouldn’t be able to budge out of the house.”
Michael is in further education in Limerick during which he continues to receive an invalidity pension.
From his income he pays his mother about €150 a week towards groceries and bills, including energy, bin-charges and phoneline and internet, as well as towards property tax, home insurance and paying off a loan taken out to pay for structural repairs on the house.
He buys a bag of coal or a bottle of gas with his fuel allowance each week. His mother also has to run a car to get to work.
To save on electricity and minimise food waste she cooks a large stew, or bolognese at the start of each week. “It’s all cooked in one shot and that lasts all week, saving the cost of cooking every night.”
Michael needs to be warm due to circulatory issues which mean he can become faint and in pain if cold.
The cost of fuel is a particular issue for him. “Where would one be going in all fairness, with a bag of coal being nearly €30 and a pack of firelighters €5 euro? The fuel allowance didn’t even cover that."
“So, our Government thinks that one bag of coal and one pack of firelighters is sufficient to provide heat to the most vulnerable. In the evenings we stay in one room, with either a coal fire or a gas heater. The door is closed and that is the warm room.
“We have central heating but we haven’t used it. There is no oil in the tank. Last night in bed I could see my breath in the air, but I do know I am so lucky not to be lying out on the street in a sleeping bag.”
He has to pay for materials for college. He has free travel and gets the bus to Ennis and on to Limerick, but the infrequent local bus service means sometimes he has to get a taxi to Ennis.
He brings a packed lunch and a Thermos cup and tea-bags. “I can get boiling water in the cafes and they won’t charge for that. And there’s heat at college,” he laughs. “I do be there as long as I can.”
He visits a food bank in Limerick three times a week – “It is demoralising but a great help” – and shops for clothes in charity shops.
Treats, like a meal out or the cinema, are “off the table”. He likes a bag of chipper chips, but even that is becoming too expensive, he says.
Extra costs associated with his disability include medications including pain injections two to three times a year which he pays for.
The additional once-off and double payments welfare-recipients got last winter, including an additional €300 to fuel allowance recipients, the extra €400 to recipients of the disability allowance or invalidity pension, and the energy credits, were “a hugely important lifeline,” he says.
“The bills are really squeezing us. In this year’s budget every little payment was pulled in one clean sweep and instead they gave us a measly €10 [addition to core weekly payments], while putting up carbon taxes to wipe it all out.
“The price of everything is increasing and our payments are effectively decreasing. The budget really hurt disabled people. This is frightening and no way to live. We are meant to be living in one of the wealthiest countries ... It’s 2025 not 1925.”
On Tuesday Michael travels to Dublin to protest with other disabled people outside Dáil.
The Irish Wheelchair Association, Disability Federation of Ireland and Access for All, are calling on Government to introduce “an immediate emergency winter payment” for people with disabilities.
“It’s crazy that vulnerable people have to take a trip to Dublin to protest outside the Dáil to try to get politicians, that we employ, to listen to us,” says Michael.
“My vision was: my own house and my own mechanic business. That was the plan. What happened took all those cards off the table. But I have my cognitive abilities and I can speak out. Disability is a political issue and I am speaking for thousands when I tell my story.”
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