The Uneducated PT Podcast - Ep: 141 On The Frontline

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

In this powerful third panel of Hard Conversations Ireland, we hear directly from those working on the frontlines the people who engage every day with individuals and communities in crisis. This conversation goes beyond statistics and policy. It focuses on lived reality. From homelessness and domestic abuse to the Traveller community and emergency services, these are the voices carrying the emotional weight of care under pressure. Panel Guests: Oscar O Broin Hayley Murphy Brian Murray Key Questions Discussed: 🔹 Why are suicide rates so high within the Traveller community — and why is there so little public urgency around it? 🔹 Why is solving homelessness about far more than simply providing housing? 🔹 What is the real process a victim of domestic abuse faces when coming forward — and why is it often so difficult? 🔹 What long-term psychological tactics do abusers use to maintain control? 🔹 Why are firefighters statistically at significantly higher risk of suicide — and what does that say about the culture of frontline services? 🔹 What moments from the frontlines do these professionals carry home with them? This panel gives space to the people who absorb trauma daily — and asks what support exists for those who are expected to be strong for everyone else. If you want to understand the real human impact behind Ireland’s mental health crisis, this is a conversation you cannot ignore. 🔔 Subscribe to Hard Conversations Ireland for more in-depth panel discussions, interviews, and honest conversations about the issues shaping Ireland today. 📢 Join the conversation in the comments and share your thoughts.

Panel number three, frontline workers and lived reality. You have five minutes. Tell me who you are what you do and your connection to mental health. Go ahead. Hey everybody. I'm Brian Murray. I'm a firefighter here locally. Second generation firefighter. I've been doing it nearly two decades. Strong union advocate for firefighters throughout the country. It was involved heavily post-strike and after the strikes, before the strikes and after the strikes, the strikes. We struck we had to go on strike over terms of conditions and stuff like that and

that obviously feeds into the mental health aspect of why I'm here and before the strikes we couldn't get any time off. Here locally we had six guys running the station for over a year with very little time off so that took its toll on people's families and their relationships on home and stuff like that. As I said it was a second generation firefighter. My father, Brian Murray's and Marco Shopman, he was killed in Loining Dewey in 2007. And that inspired me to drive on and effect change within the service. What change in the need? What happened? There was staffing, money, terms and conditions.

Firefighters in this country were in the post-World War II system. And that's only starting to change now. We have much more time off, much more better terms and conditions, pensions. It's a livable wage now, whereas before it was a struggle. And again, that feeds into anything at home. With that, as I said, two decades in the job, thousands of calls from industrial fires to domestic fires, suicides, traumatic suicides.

We see people on the worst day of their lives, you know. I suppose it's a difficult job, but it's also the best job in the world. There's a paradox to it. People only ever see the lights and the Instagram rails and the cool shit. big flames now but there's a very very darker side underneath it as well and when firefighters are first responders at all have too much time to think it can

be bad for them and down to him sometimes can be bad and especially if you don't have the right supports in place and you don't you're not as opposed to they train you to be effective as a firefighter or a force responder they teach you to service your equipment they teach you to service and and do all these amazing and things swift water rescue mountain rescue extrications from cars medical calls but they don't teach you to look after yourself your mind and I really do think that from a recruit stage that that's something that they need to look at is to teach people that there is another side to this job that it's not all you know what you see on TV yeah do you think um like there's a paradox

there where what makes you a good firefighter is the fact that you can switch off and just like act Whereas, like you said, then if you have time off, then you have time thinking. And I think you spoke to me before about, you know, people, our firefighters always try and chase that high outside of work then after. Yeah, there's definitely an identity thing within that. So I see a lot of guys that are retired that I talk to quite a lot. For some reason, they come to me. I don't know why. But after they retire, they seem to have an identity problem.

It's like they're a firefighter, true and true. all their life or the first responder or regard or whatever it is and then all of a sudden that stops and I think that we need to get better through the unions definitely at giving these people supports after their career has ended instead of it just they're here today they're gone you know and that that's something that we definitely need to look at across the board across the state and across the world really and for a fight into small community our friends in new york our friends all around the world in the UK and stats are not great for firefighters and their mental health so hi my name is Haley Murphy I am the

hi my name is Haley Murphy I am the outreach coordinator for a Bray women's refuge and a new Wiclow domestic violence supports so I have been working with domestic abuse for oh on and off 22 years I started off in domestic abuse then worked with kids in care for 10 years and then it always brought me back to where my passion was and that was a domestic abuse I suppose when we think of abuse we automatically think of bruises broken arms divisible bruises but in relation to mental health I think it's the emotional abuse and the psychological abuse that cuts deep and it just gets straight into your head and it strips you of everything that you possibly can

As far as anyone that knows me, I'm a fighter. I am not used to this. I work behind the scenes. I want to ensure that any victim becomes a survivor. They don't become another statistic, that every barrier possible is taken away. And if I have to scream and shout from the rooftops to do that, unlike a fireman, we don't have sirens,

We don't have Instagram posts because still in Ireland a domestic abuse is seen as behind doors. It's what happens inside. It's a domestic. We better not get involved. Although laws have changed

in the government as bone of contention will put in laws to protect the victims where they're actually just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It doesn't fit. So I would see

our service as the surfboard that carries a victim through the worst stage of their lives and I think like what Brian was saying as a frontline worker and working with trauma the whole time you never get used to seeing someone so powerless and so like vulnerable

and when they turn to a system that's supposed to be there to protect them that system further abuses them and so yeah when I took this job up and I had the privilege of creating a service that wasn't there and I was able to you know from my own experiences and friends experiences and families experiences I was able to see the gaps and build a service that you know it's

amazing it's amazing and amazing staff that also have the same drive that I have and you just touch on maybe like the typical clients that you would work with because I think one of the people think of domestic views, they'll just think about physical violence as well. What kind of other cases that you would work on a day-to-day basis? Every case that we did like to give an example. I was only doing the stats for Kuhin there the other day. Kuhn is the organisation within the Department of Justice

and they want all our stats. So in January, the age range that we dealt with was the youngest was 20 and the eldest was 86. You never think of an 86-year-old. being abused. We would deal with emotional abuse, as I said, physical abuse, sexual abuse, coercive control. The cases could range, and it's very hard, I suppose, if you don't have a bruise, if you don't have a broken arm, it's very hard to come out and say, I'm being emotionally abused because you don't know what emotional abuse is. And when we're talking about mental health

and young people with mental health issues, and we're looking at, we're looking at, we're told from a young age you don't hit back you don't do this you talk about emotions but we're not educated on what emotion abuse is what does that feel like to feel like you're trapped in a situation that you've no way out it's a prison it's a mental and psychological prison but the difference is it's not done by a stranger it's done by someone that you love it's done by someone that it could be your husband, your wife, because there is male victims of domestic abuse. What is supposed to feel safe is a nightmare, and you try and shape yourself to become a person that the person you love wants you to be, but no matter how much you change your shape,

you're never going to fit into that mould, because the mould constantly changes. So we could have, I remember one of the first cases that I worked with all those years ago, and she'd come into the refuge because I worked in the refuge first and her husband was, he was a pilot, he worked for Aer Lingus and even still when I go and get on an Erlingus pen, I go, I hope that fucker's not driving his plane. But this made emotional abuse really hit with me and I remember she was sitting with me and she was like,

I don't deserve to be here. And I was like, why do you think you don't deserve to be here? And I said, because he isn't hitting me. But this woman couldn't drive her car because he clocked the mileage every single morning. So he knew how many miles it was for her to go to school and come back. She wasn't able to see her mum. And if she had to go and see her mom, she'd to walk for miles and miles and miles because the car was clocked.

She wasn't able to spend money. She wasn't able to buy a bra for herself. She wasn't even be able to buy anything because he controlled every single penny where to the outside world, oh, isn't your husband, grey, he goes shopping with you every week. She was limited from absolutely everybody, but she didn't see it as abuse. she just felt that this isn't right.

Would them victims be in denial almost about what's going on? Or it's just like not awareness? I don't think it's denial. I think it becomes normal. Yeah. So we are victims of normalising stuff. And if we're going back to even what the other panelists we're talking about is even when it comes to eating disorders, self-harming, you know,

it becomes normal to be on the phone all the time. It becomes normal. Oh, it's great. He's my night and shining armor. He's protecting me. He's, you know, like wants this to have my password. Behaviour has become normal and we're afraid to actually question them because then when you question them, you may think that you're mad.

So if you question something, oh, my doing it because I love you. I'm only doing it because of this or, you know, it's because of my childhood and we can blame our past trauma for our behaviour without taking accountability for it. I have a man. It's going to be a short five minutes, Carl. I'm Oscar, I work up in Bray Travellers, Community Development Group. So I work with travellers throughout Bray, kind of surrounding towns. My work would be all around housing, accommodation and homelessness.

So that can vary from anything from getting work done to houses to families living in long-term homelessness. So I guess my role would have been funded originally because they would have noticed, so Saloncha Care did a study and they noticed that travellers in Bray specifically were having really poor health outcomes compared to the rest of the country and compared to Wicklow. And like there's a much bigger traveller population in Wicklow, Ratneau, and they were having much better outcomes. Whereas in Bray, I'd be working with about 450-ish individuals in the kind of Bray, Kilmac, Greystone's areas. And the life expectancy was massively shorter.

Chronic health was way shorter. Why was it shorter than? It's a complicated. one because it's not a one-answer thing. In Bray we had a lot more addiction than they would have in Wiclo. We'd have a lot more people going in and out of prisons than they wouldn't Wiclow and that presents its own challenges. Now that's addiction was one part of up but like typically we would lose maybe three four or five individuals in Bray traveller individuals to addiction or drug-related deaths every year. But you know it comes

down to things like housing conditions and that's obviously a big part of my role particularly looking fast row we have three four generations living in one home you know there's one house where we have a two bed and we have 16 people living in the two bed it's and that's that's not uncommon you know so obviously there's an impact on your mental health with that you know we're we're not supposed to live like that you're not supposed to have this many people living together and not able to have your own lives and you know culturally travelers would have big families i work with last to people that have seven, eight, nine children and, you know, three generations of big families in one home is just, it's not what anyone's meant to live like. But then you also have the

physical impact on the home. These homes are designed for three, four people. So we have really serious issues with mould. And then that leads on to other health complications, you know, like our rates of CLPD and things, asthma would be really high because of the living environment. So it's, it's really multifaceted. There's no one answer to it. But, um, it was a real issue that they were seeing with travellers in the brains surrounding areas. Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with you, Oscar, and I'm just going to... So obviously, you know, there's much higher suicide rates among the travelling community compared to other people. But why is there so little public outrage or political action around it?

Like, to be honest, it was only after speaking to you that I understood them, the higher rates in travelling community compared to the outside. So, why is that? It's, again, it's a hard one to say. So I guess I think it's about 11, 12% of all deaths in travellers are suicide. So that's about six and a half times higher than the settled community. It's a big, it's a big number. There's kind of two aspects to it. One is shame within the traveller community themselves.

Like a lot of it is kind of a shame-based culture. And like I say this a million times tonight, I'm not a traveler. I don't speak on behalf of travellers who just speak of my experience working with. not for the last five years, but there is a real shame in the traveller community around mental health and suicide. And I guess that's why we would see a lot of addiction, because particularly from men and women as well, actually, there's a lot of women in addiction as well. And it's not being able to speak about your mental health, not having someone you can go to, you know, it wouldn't be something that, now it is more and it's definitely changing, but it wouldn't have been as openly spoken about.

and that goes on and it only can get to a certain point and then you know someone might take their own life as well so but then obviously there's there's massive discrimination towards travellers and like I would have worked in youth work before I was only saying this the other day to someone that we would have done a lot of work with apprenticeships and I'd know loads of lads and trades and stuff that always gives the lads an apprenticeship and I've a I've a young traveller lad like he's he's one of the most amazing young lads he's so reliable really decent brilliant family, lots of support around them and I asked someone to give him a bit of work with him as a plumber and he saw the CV and now he's loads on a CV he's a really talented young lad you know and he looked at me and he said more house and I said yeah but I vowed from 100% and he says not another chance he said oh my copper is going to be nicked and that's you know one of the biggest things that we have I do a lot of work with the young lads and they

they genuinely want to work you know and they're more like travellers one of culturally kind of been self-employed, you know, and that's where you get to kind of pave and roof and all that type of stuff. But a lot of travellers now are willing to work anywhere, to work for anyone, and we just can't get them employment. They can't get employment, and it's just, it's the second name. It's, and they're so easily identified. Even before they step in front you, you see, you know, the common names around here, Morhouse, Connors, and that's, you know. How do you tackle that as a society if people aren't willing to? I'm trying to figure that out.

In fairness, I think a lot of people would be more open to being open. Like, I had a really good meeting there the other day with a lot of the staff from the department to the social protection. And they were more or less saying the same as me. We want to do everything we can. And in fairness, they've been really helpful. There's lots of great initiatives to know for people who've been out of work. There's great initiatives for getting travellers into work.

And a lot of employers don't know about them. So even like jobs plus, like if you're out of work for two years and you have a company, you take someone on to work for you who's been out of work for two years, you're giving 10 grand straight away. No questions asked. There's these kind of, obviously the things like back to education allowance, there's work experience program allowances that will top up someone's social welfare and the employer will get a benefit as well.

And these are all really good initiatives that I think maybe need to be pushed a little bit more because, you know, I'm a reference for all the lads. I would always give an honest reference. I had someone ring me before saying, is he reliable? And I said, no. He's a lovely young lad, but no, he's not reliable, you know. We'll cut that. I told him, I told him I'd say it.

I said, don't put me as a reference. But, you know, just a lot of these lads and girls as well, because there's more traveller women working now, if someone gave them a chance and saw the ability they have, like these are young lads that are far smarter than me, you know, and more able. than me and if they were given that first chance dead fly it you know Brian I'll go back to you so international evidence shows firefighters are three

times more likely to die by suicide than the general population and Irish firefighters and unions report similar patterns here and I presume you're probably the same why do you think firefighters are a higher risk yeah it's a terrible statistic we have and it is a world-wide study it's there the UK did one recently as well and the same stats were there I'm not sure the Irish have done. Again, we're slightly behind with that. I suppose the reason it is

is it's the cumulative trauma that we witnessed, the calls, the stress, a lot of attending suicides, attending car accidents, again, traumatic suicides, they could be anything from hanging to somebody that goes under a train. Is that something that isn't the clients?

Quite a lot. Yeah, we do get suicide calls a lot. We don't talk about them. Obviously you don't publicise. It's kept quiet. And again, there is a stigma around it, both in civilian life as well as firefight, military, guardee. Yeah, it's just it's not spoken about enough, I think, you know. But the trauma of all the calls that we witness over decades or some people could be 20, 30 years in the job.

And again, these are calls. You don't just attend them, you absorb them. You know, like you go home. even after if it's a domestic fire somewhere and you're kind of lying there sometimes thinking could I have done this better could I have done that better when in reality you could have done nothing you know it was what it was and that's that's where I think that a lot of guys around the world struggle with it yeah and I asked you about is there support systems for firefighters and you said that there was but the biggest issue is that people don't take advantage of them yeah there is supports there

we have critical incident stress management. We're given a couple of sessions a year. Again, it's probably not enough, but I would say that ourselves in the union are responsible for that, that we need to be pushing it more on our members. As I said to you before, firefighting is quite a sane is quite a masculine job. In reality, we're just normal people.

So we feel the same as everyone else. So it's getting firemen, and I think the newer generation are better out than us, because they are opening up and talking about things they've seen, whereas my generation and older again, my father's generation, was just crack on with it. Yeah. You know, and that's the completely wrong way, you know.

You can't keep letting things build up on you. Yeah. Was there anything, let's say, you've been in the first service a long time, so is there any ways that have helped you to cope with incidents that you've seen besides maybe even talk therapy? Yeah, I mean, I'm very, very lucky. I've great supports around me.

I've got great gym colleagues. there's a couple of them here today laughing at me there no do. I train a lot. That helps me. I believe, you know, keeping physically fit, that helps you keep mentally fit. But I definitely think that men in general need to check themselves every now and then. I mean, you'll spend a few hundred euro on a set of tires for a car, but you won't sit and actually think and go and seek help if you need it.

Yeah. You know, and it's not that expensive anymore when you're great charities like this. There's really no excuse anymore for us to sit. in the dark and let our heads get the better of us. Hedy, I'll go to you now. Can you explain the process a victim of domestic abuse faces when coming forward and why the journey is often made more difficult than it needs to be? I know we spoke about this. The legal process or the process force or the legal process.

And I think all the systems that are kind of from maybe going down to the Gardi to the court system and maybe all of that. So I suppose in Ireland we have a system that we're relying on an illegal system to fix a social system if that makes sense. So a domestic abuse, I suppose we're talking about emotional and psychological abuse. It's not like if you go out on a Saturday night and you're in a pub and someone hits you a punch and the CCTV and the guards come and arrest them and, you know, it goes to court and blah, blah, blah. it's not the same, but it's treated the same in illegal system. So if you go to court, you can apply for an order, which everyone's aware of you can get a protection order, safety order, a barren order, and they come in different tiers.

So it depends on we go back to the Constitution, so the owner of the house and the marriage, and that's protected within our constitution, which hasn't changed. So that creates barriers then for people who are going to court. So if you don't own a property or if you aren't married, you can't get a baron order. You can only get a safety order. I don't want to minimize any orders. But I kind of call a safety order like a paper shield.

You can break through it. Again, it comes down to evidence. But in Ireland, we've a huge, huge issues with the legal system in the sense that the victim is also the witness. So if you are a victim of crime, you're also the witness to that crime. So the system doesn't protect the victims. So the victim goes into court. They haven't got solicitors. They haven't got barristers.

They've got the DPPs, the one that's bringing the prosecution to court. And victims turn up and they're caught in a world wind that excuse the French dollar of the arse on their elbow. Like they arrive to court. They want to get a solicitor. There's no one there to explain to them how the whole system works. There's no one there to explain that they have to stand up and give evidence that they're. So if they don't go and give evidence, well, then there's no case. And as we spoke about, it's not just a case against a stranger.

It's a case against someone that you love or someone that you did love and that there's kids involved, there's houses involved. So it's not just that simple. Like the barriers are huge. You could go down to your guard station and report a crime and, you know, coercive control became a crime in Ireland in 2018. But what is coercive control? No one can identify coercive control.

So if you go into the guard station and say, you know, I'm being coercive controlled, would then prove it. But how can you prove a look? So coercive control is so, it's like cancer. You can't see it. It eats you up inside. So if you're trying to sit there and explain to a normal member of the Gardee and no offense to them, but like Brian, they could be coming back from a car crash.

coming back from telling someone that their loved one has died. They could be coming back from a drug raid and then you got a woman coming in that wants to report and being coercively controlled. My husband doesn't do this or he gives me a look or, you know, I'm not allowed to have this. And they look and go, oh, you know what, come back tomorrow or, you know, like the stories I've heard from women who've gone in to make statements. And I'm very lucky. As I said, I've got an amazing team around me and there's an amazing members of the Gardee. But at the end of the day, you know, I go in, I do training with the Gardee and I'm like, the woman or the person that's coming to make that statement to you, the like stats are very clear. On average, they've been abused

33 times before they plucked up the courage for you to minimize what they're going through. Like I had a woman that I worked with, just not going to go into details of it, but she had, been through horrific abuse and she was sexually assaulted by her husband for years. And I worked with her for a long, long, long time and eventually she decided through her support that she was going to go and make statement. And I met her before she went into the guard station. We done a whole plan and then she rings me five minutes later and tears crying. And I'm like, what's wrong? And she knocked on the hatch and the guard answered it. And she said, I want make a statement about abuse from my husband and he went,

ah, can you come back tomorrow? You know, I'm just about to go off shift. And she went, yeah, no problem. And went out. And she rang me and she was in tears crying. And I'm like, oh my God. Now, anyone knows me. I did kick up a fuss and I rang the superintendent

and I ended up getting a member of Vangardi to come down to air office and take a statement. But I shouldn't have to do that. I shouldn't have to be the one that has to go into the judge and say, Judge, you know, you've been a bit harsh on that women, you know, or go to solicitors and, you know, the law is very black and white, but emotional abuse and domestic abuse is grey, and the system doesn't allow for that, you know, and the fact that councillors' notes can still be brought in to play when it comes to a rape case or, you know, that's her personal. So now women are coming for counselling and they're like,

I don't really want to say because in case the notes are being brought. So a safe space for them has become a weapon. So no matter which way a victim turns, they're being weaponised by the system that's there to protect them, when in fact the system can further abuse them. In what ways can the system be improved so they don't have to go through that? They need to be victim-focused. Victim-focused is stop victim-plaining, basically.

So victim-focused is a woman or man who comes to court to get, an order shouldn't have to face their, they're, like, abuser. You know, they should be able to... Every day of the week happens. Every day of the week. You know, I was in court last Tuesday, and I don't think there's ever one day

that I walk out of court and don't be annoyed. Does not one day I walk out and go, justice was served? Never. I cannot, honestly, put my hand in heart and say that that's ever happened in the 11 years I'm working up in court.

that I go like, because it isn't justice, you know, she is, they are cross-examined, they're questioned, you know, they have to provide mental health records, they're accused apparent alienation, and that's frustrating. So the system that should be there and needs to change, victims should be entitled to legal representation, that's free, you know, like a perpetrator, like I can beat the crap out of my partner and I can go in and get free legal aid but if I want solicitor I have to pay

750, 900 euro per day to have a solicitor there with me that's if it's allowed we need to stop looking at victims to come up with the solutions we need to start looking at perpetrators the fact that someone could be found guilty of

domestic abuse and I say guilty because if someone's granted a court order. There's been a whole trial. There's been, it could be a two or three hour hearing, yet they can still have access to their kids without going to a perpetrator program. So how do we break the cycle?

How do we protect the kids? Because the kids are silent in every aspect of it and they're also weaponised. We need stricter prison sentences for perpetrators. And I think we've seen that with, amazing woman that came forward that was abused by her husband who was a member of vanguard of Chiajana and think we all need to stop being naive to the fact that it only happens to people in a council estate or oh well she's to blame she could just leave them you know as if

leaving is as easy as that like if it was easy to leave every victim would leave and we need to look at housing we need to look at everything every area of society we need to look at you know, and until we really start looking at it from victim focus as to what's best for her and not what is best for our constitution or what's best for the legal system, or it's best for the Gardee or whatever area you look at. Like even our courts, like sitting in court today until 7 o'clock at night, you know, I think the latest I ever, actually the latest I ever left right court was 10 to 11 at night time. Like what court sits at 10 to 11 at night?

Like we had women sitting there that came to court and applied for a domestic violence order, which are ex parte, and they were left to the end of the day. And then the judge said, you know what, I'm going, you need to come back on Tuesday. And they haven't been heard. So they were sent home, and they have to come back on Tuesday to see the judge to get their order where they should be imminent. They should be given priority and they're not given priority. the family law bill was supposed to come in where courts were family orientated and that

judges were experienced and specialised that hasn't happened so you could have the same judge that could be sitting there and he's hearing a criminal case, park and fine case a young lad that was caught with enough for a joint that you have

everyone fighting for you could have anything and then he comes up with a domestic abuse and he's in bad form and he's had a shit day and he just gives that poor victim a hard time asking why you're only coming now and blah and then they're left sitting in court all day long with kids there's no creche there's no childcare we have toys up in the room and we're left to look after the kids because kids can't go into the courtroom so it's not fit for purpose it's not fit for victims it's not fit for like families and it's certainly not fit for kids

Sorry, that was very long-winded. And you touched on homes there as well. Oscar, I wanted to bring you in and talk to you about. We had a discussion and you said that obviously people think that the first solution for homelessness is to give some of the house. But there's a lot of steps in between that. Can you touch on that little bit? Yeah. So we'd work with a lot of people who've been in long-term home business.

I've never been in their houses or never been in their own homes. And in Wicklow, really, we have a real lack of emergency accommodation. I'd say, Hayley, obviously, you'd see that a lot in your work. And I'm not for one second blaming the council, actually. I have a really good relationship with a homeless team, with the housing staff, and they're kind of blaming central government, you know, for the funding in order to put these funding applications into buy places. But like if you have someone that's never lived in a home,

that's never had the capacity to do these things. And we were talking outside with Chloe as well about people leaving care. You know, if you've come from a situation where everything's been done for you, you've been supported with everything. And then they say if you're leaving care, you get to 18, and they say, right, on you go. You don't know how to use your washing machine. You haven't had to cook. You haven't had to budget.

You know, you've never had to set up your Wi-Fi bills and stuff. And similarly, like with long-term homelessness, and we'd see a lot with people in addiction that, you know, they might say, look, if I just get a home, I'd be grant. That's the only thing I need because they're homeless. But you're going from zero to 100 there. You've never had to do all these other little things. And I wouldn't hold them up now as the standards that we should be aiming for.

But the UK at least does have a lot more kind of supported living facilities. So, you know, if you've come from long-term homelessness or you're coming through or are in addiction, you might have somewhere where you could go where you're supported, their social workers or the staff, their family support staff. and you kind of prove yourself through that, then you can go into your own home. You still might have more supports. Whereas in Ireland, if you're lucky enough to get a home,

it's very much just you're left to your own devices. Now, there are things like Housing First or, you know, hail referrals with mental health issues, but Housing First is kind of in a bit of a tizzy at the minute. It's not really... There's no Housing First's not anymore. That's gone. Yeah.

But, like, there's very little, you know, in terms of... And, like, one thing that we see, is just someone getting the tenancy, the tenancy failing. That didn't work out because my family aren't close by, I'm not in the right area, I just need to live here, move over, same thing happens again. And there's no addressing it, there's no, you know, people can't realize it's not a house I need. I need all this other work done first. I need, he's kind of touched on in the first panel about like a wraparound support network of all these different things. And I guess in my job, that's what we tried to do, you know, and we'd have.

our addiction staff we've had you know we'd link in with the guards we'd link in with different kind of support services and be cap and the likes and when someone moves into a home that is going to need a lot more support we'd have a table of people there sitting down and saying right what has this person done for this person why has this person done what have we done what are we missing what do we need to do but that's that's just something that we don't really see and like I guess the first step really would be emergency accommodation or more flexible like imagining housing more flexibly in the country you know like could we have somewhere where we have your own front door units and you live here for a year but there is support and then maybe

move on to your own unit you know but at the moment it's kind of homelessness a house that's it and there's nothing in between those are shortage of emergency uh it's massive there's massive yeah it's it's i can't get beds for anyone you know there's when it gets to kind of cold weather. There was beds this year so the council would have a cold weather initiative for really cold nights and there were beds this year. Now I know they were snapped up but in terms of actually housing people in emergency accommodation there's just nothing. There's no, you'd see as well like we'd see that a lot like we've got a family that we're working with that's been homeless for 15 months and she was offered a B&B down in

Courthown, I think, is one of the only B&Bs. And that's the issue is that it's self-accommodation vouchers, which is great. Another policy that looks great in paper. Oh, yeah, the council would pay 50 euro night towards a B&B or six-year-on-night towards a B&B. Okay, give me a B&B and it's going to take that. There isn't. I, that was self-accom voucher. So it's, we'll call it'll give you a voucher.

It's 70 quid a night. So we had someone coming home from prison recently. Now, there's kind of seven places, between, they're not in Bray anymore, now I'm Bray will take them, but in Wicklow, Waterford, Kilkenny, there's kind of seven that we'll take them between those three counties.

And Lackdhame, I think, is more. Yeah, yeah. And in fairness, Rattrum was the only one that said, yeah, we do still take them, but we've no room. We've had people living here in B&B accommodation up to three years. And so we had someone coming home from prison.

48 places I rang between Kilkenny, Dublin City Centre, just saying, do you take them? No. Nowhere takes them and they were brought in not as a means of being helpful but as that's that's them meeting their legal obligation. Or a tick box. So if you have a legal obligation to provide emergency accommodation to someone who needs it. But by offering financial kind of, you know, like in terms of the voucher, you're actually

meeting that legal obligation because if you can't provide it, you're giving them the means to do that. But if nowhere takes them and like it's the same as HAP, like the property. property prices are skyrocket and HAP hasn't gone up. You know, like... Half, I think it's $1,500 a month or something? It depends on, yeah, depends on what. So like, I'm HAP approved.

I'm on the housing list. I can get 900 quid a month towards my rent, but they won't let you go over, like my maximum kind of be $1,200 based on your income and stuff. So where can you find somewhere to rent for $1,200? That firstly will take HAP anyways, you know what I mean? But there's just no provision of any of these things, you know? And if we're finding that as professionals, then how is it the most vulnerable people finding access to the systems?

Yeah, exactly. You know, on other people's behalf and we know the systems, we know the language. Like if you're sending, and like a lot of people similar to yourself that I work with, they don't have one trauma. They have fucking, it's just chaos, you know, like you'd have addiction in the home, you'd have children with disabilities, you have domestic abuse, you have, you know, kind of precarious housing, you have so many things going on. and then if they're finding themselves in a situation of homelessness and you're saying okay we'll bring all the B&Bs you know around the country and see who takes them you know and like again a lot of the people I work with can't read and write

and we clock out to council it might be sending you an email with really detailed legal things on it and they're coming to me saying what the fuck am I supposed to do and I'm pulling my hair out well what's left of my hair like I'm pulling that out you know in terms of someone who not these systems. So if you can't read or you have all these other stresses going on, good look like it's... I actually remember sitting down in Wicklow County Council because the woman was staying up in their refuge and, you know, we only have seven bedrooms and were full 100% of the

time. We never have a room and most of the backlog is down to homelessness and we were, a woman was there for months, her and four kids and I went down to Wicklow County Council. She was percent in the homeless and they weren't doing anything with her. I said, no. And I said, all right. So for four days we went down with her four kids with Pepper Pig on full blast to annoy the council that much

on the fort. Oh, we got chippers delivered. The whole council and the only, I'm very blessed. The only instruction my manager had was don't leave in handcuffs. I said, no, promise you I won't. I need my guard of betting. So we knew where to, I knew where to push to line, but I'm like we'd sit there for four days

before she was given homeless the con. Everything's a fight and it shouldn't have to be a fight. And I think as a professional working in this area and I think Brian and agree, and it's the very same with Oscar is that, like, if us as professionals are finding a fight and how the hell are people finding it

that aren't linked in with any service? Yeah. You know, everything's a battle. I'm going to leave one more question for all of you to answer in your own way. So basically to help the audience understand what it's really like to work in their role, I'm just a personal trainer

so I get to see the best people I don't know how you do it but could you share maybe like a day or a moment that was emotionally overwhelming or something that you can't know what he's looking at me for oh Oscar

yeah I don't know you have to not let yourself be overwhelmed is that difficult to do though when you hear those stories well like yeah but it's not even hearing those stories it's Like we're a drop-in service. I have people coming into me every single day. I've people ringing me on my phone and the phone I can deal with because you can hang that up eventually

and you can, you know, calm someone down on the phone. But it's when someone comes into it who's, you know, like, you know, going through addiction or going through domestic violence and they're saying like, what am I supposed to do? And you look at them and you say, I don't know. Do you know what I mean? All you like, it is tough and like I get to, I see the worst of people, you know, I see them at their lowest point, but I see the best of people, you know, I work with so many really funny, amazing people, like, you know, I've real characters that come into me, you know? And, like, I sometimes have to remind myself, they're not my friends, you know, like, you often do just ring someone. And you said, I've not an update, I just, I thought I'd ring you now, I told you I'd ring you this week. And they say, oh, right, why are you ringing me this week? Yeah, you do forget, like, oh, actually, sorry, I'm actually your housing key worker. You know, like, oh, you'd say something. Yeah, yeah, it's, oh, it was your young lad's birthday.

Like, tell him I said happy birthday, and you're like, oh, no, that's actually not my job. But, you know, I just hope that as I get older, I don't become cold to it. And I think that's the thing that people find hard, you know, when you're in a job and you're seeing the hardest of situations for 30, 40, 50 years, you do become cold to it. There's a fancy word for it that I can't remember. Yeah, compassion of fatigue, I think is that, yeah. You know, but that's, you know, that's. That's just what I hope I don't get to, but when you see that so often, I'm sure, you know, you will get to that point. But, you know, I do work with great people and I do lots of fun things and work as well, and I do get to meet a lot of good people.

But I don't know how you can't put it when you see it at the worst. I just sit in the car and leave the radio off and, you know, when you're driving home and just leave the radio off and sit in the driveway for a bit. And then, I don't know, you just get on with it then, don't you? I have no magic answer for that one. That's all right. She's a lot more knowledgeable, you know. I wouldn't say knowledgeable. I would like to, you don't become immune to it.

I think in all the years that I'm working in this job, there's not a day that goes by that I'm not heartbroken by the stories that we hear. But I suppose what makes me smile through it all is when a woman does get the freedom. And the freedom is in always what we perceive as freedom, is the freedom from the mind is when you sit with a woman and you do that psychoeducational work

and she realizes, I'm actually not fucking mad. I am a good mother. I am not what he told me that I was. That's liberating for us as an organisation and is liberating for them. I suppose I've learned techniques. I have a little technique and I do say to my classroom. clients, no, you're in the box at Glenna Dounds. So when I'm driving home, I kind of in my head,

put my clients in boxes and say, okay, I'm leading you here until tomorrow. I'm leading you here. And Glenda Downs is my cutoff because I lose signal. Because it's Glendezer D. East Coast, A, M.A., because it's that psychological. You have to switch off. Like, if you don't switch off, you're going to reach burnout. If you don't have a mechanism, I'm very lucky. I love running. My partner, I'll come in the door, I put the headphones on, and I could be gone. Like, I could go up to Wicklow Mountains and I might come back four hours later. God who knows when I'm going to come back. And the gym for me, but it is learning that resilience to, it isn't, you,

these people have learned to survive, they're alive and manage to stay alive and not be murdered before they met you. So they know how to keep themselves safe. It's not down to you to keep them safe. It's down to you to support them and listen to them. So it's known your own limitations. And yeah, staying in your lane. Like if I have someone that's homeless, yes, I sit in the homeless action team, but homelessness is not my lane. If I have someone that's in addiction where a lot of women are an addiction, a lot of women get turned to addiction because that's the only way you cope and it's the only way living with it. That's not my lane. So I refer them to B-CAT or other addiction services. The mental health one,

is the huge one because not many psychotherapists have an understanding of a domestic abuse and the impact it has on them, which is why I'm back in college. I'm a gloating for college. But, yeah, so it's learning that and learning to release. Is there between the two things that you've got said,

is there a little bit of a push and pull between obviously setting down boundaries in place and then not becoming cold to your job? Yeah, I find it really hard. I'm a divv for keeping the work found on on the weekend during my week's off. Oh, no. Oh.

Like, I'm, I'm off. Experience. Come back to be a 10 years time. You're doing that. Like, I'm off next week and I felt a real guilt over being off now next week, you know what I mean? Like, it's time of little I'm entitled to it. Yeah, of course. You know, but just, you know, when I know someone's coming in to give me something on the Tuesday,

and I was thinking, right, well, I pop in, just get that farm on Tuesday and then go back home. And then I know if I went in on the Tuesday, be there the whole day and then, you know, but. It's off that, yeah. Like I do find it hard sometimes to just completely switch off. And you can keep yourself busy when you get home. Yeah. Like I'll just start cooking random stuff and cooking everything and then, before dinners cook, like, you know.

But I find, yeah. I wouldn't trust my cooking now. But like it's sometimes I do wake up during the night. And I'm not worrying about someone, but I said, geez, if I put that person in that house and I can get that person moved there. I've solved it. But it's, yeah, that's what I find hard anyway. It's just switching it off completely.

I think it comes with experience as well that I suppose when I initially started I would have been like you had the work phone on all the time and then I just found like I think there's a line am I empowering or disempowering someone so by me having my work phone all the time on

I'm disempowering and I'm just taking over from where the abuse are left so I'm you know I'm not instilling that empowerment and I'm all about empowerment and women's rights and so I think I learned and I think COVID taught me a lot I think it's the only positive thing about COVID.

That, you know, before COVID it would have been like Oscar, I would have the phone on all the time, would have been up in the court the whole time, would have been, you know, I kind of felt like everything was on my shoulders. And then COVID happened, and I couldn't see that person. I couldn't pop into the office. I couldn't ring them. It was an abuser's ideal scenario. They had their victim in the house.

The kids weren't in school. There was no social workers. There was no one knocking the door. And I had to wait for them to reach out to me. and I think the first few months of COVID I was like a baby out of a swaddle I wasn't able to sleep I was worrying about all of the clients and I was worrying about

everyone worrying about the staff and then as time went on and was like okay I'm turning on the radio there's no murders there's no you know and it kind of instilled and then when I did get to talk to women I was asking how they were coping and how they were managing it was like

okay they listened you know they were able to manage so I think that kind of gave a bit that you know I am allowed going holidays like if I don't feel my emotional cup if I don't look after me because there's no one there for me you know work wise

home wise yeah there is and sometimes I think they wish they weren't because they sometimes get the brunt of it but you know you have to look after yourself and it's not and I know we spoke about it before it's not I think we have a culture and I speak to one of the panace about it as well she's just full of herself or she's this and

or they're that it's like no this is called self-care it's not called like vanity or being vain it's I think we underestimate self-care. Is there a high burnout in your career because of people not being able to set boundaries and switch off and have self-care? I think it comes down to the management and it comes down to the culture. And as like Brian was saying with the fire brigade and the culture within that, I think it's about having conversations and leading by example.

You know, like I will say to all the staff that I work with, leave your work phone in the car. I will have my work phone on me if I have a very high-risk case that, that I'm actually this woman needs support and I would give her permission to ring my work from and it's my responsibility to have it with me. It's only if it's a high risk case or there's something going on

that I feel she needs that support because I'm her only support network which we spoke about before. But there is a huge burnout but it does come down to the culture that you're working in and to be allowed and I'm sure it's the same in your place as well.

Everything isn't serious. You can have a laugh although the court is a horrible place you'll still hear me and my colleague Alain upstairs Breakner shite laugh

and Catlin and the court staff will laugh at us and even the like George will because he knows where you know you're allowed have humour

in... It's such a fair point of like the staff where I work the staff where I work have all been there a long time to know

and I'm taking next week off because my manager said you have time in lieu you are not allowed come in so I'm actually not taking

I was forced out to be it But in fairness, like where I work, everyone is just, they're great. And they're always checking in on you and they'll sit down. Literally what she's just said there, the whole thing, you know. Like they say, like, leave your work found on the desk and stop it. You know, there's people looking out for you. And, you know, but I've worked in places where it's been the opposite, you know,

and you might have an issue with something and you're looking for support. And they'll say, well, that's your job. And that's when you get the issues. And I think particularly with social workers, you know, if we're looking at the likes of Tewsla, HSE, the burnout rates there are just huge. You know, I've worked with families where the child could have had six social workers in one year, you know, and that's so destructive to them. And it's, yeah, yeah.

It's not a reflection necessarily on the social worker, it's a reflection on the organisation, because I found most of them great people, and not to go on a tangent now, but they're not let do what they want to do. they're just, I don't know why they bothered to go to college because they've been told this is what you have to do now you go and do it whereas they're all capable of, you know, assessing a situation, making the judgments and acting on it, but they're not let do that. Now I'm not saying that for every department and every organisation in two slip, but you know, I've worked with some really amazing social workers that have moved to other jobs

and you bump into them, their new jobs and they say, I just couldn't hack it there. And now they're doing great and they're brilliant people. but anyways I will go on attention about that one. That's another minute. Sorry, Brian. Brian, last question for you. How to stay in your job? There's been a few, I suppose.

One just comes to mind there because there's a fella that retired out a job a few years ago. And he'd only rang me maybe two weeks ago. And he was talking about a call again. That sort of, I think, was the end. the beginning of the end for him in the job and without going into too much detail it was a tender age boy it involved a very very traumatic and suicide

and as he said himself that little boy went home with him that night and he can't drive certain routes because it reminds him of it and like I said this is a big strong dude you know and it still it breaks him every day. So there's people like him that we have to watch out for. I've no doubt, as I always say, no one gets out of my job on skate. And that's first responders in general.

That's these guys, the guards, the paramedics, everything. So just to go abroad, they all carry a burden. And it's just, hopefully they become the stigma breaks, that they just come, they talk, they train, whatever they need to do just to get outside their own fucking heads, you know?

And yeah, I think it's, we're getting better at it. at least we're talking about it now, whereas before we didn't. So it was just grunt, get on with it, and, you know, crack on, as they say. Hopefully them days are gone now. You know, even talking here, hopefully somebody sees it and reaches out. I mean, we've had a couple of suicides in this country in the last 12 months. One guy knew, and yeah, if only he had to reach out to somebody.

I don't know what the situation was that why he did it, but he did it. And again, as Eno said at the start there, it was a good idea you wouldn't, you never think, you know. I suppose I just finish up by saying a huge mental health advocate passed away last month. That was an ex-fire fighter in Limerick, everyone would know him as Powell to Wire. Massive loss to the social media world alone with the positivity spread. and yeah just rest in peace pa and definitely thinking of his family yeah well said

well thank you for you thank you for you