Prisoner.

By Swan Youth Club in Dublin 1.

Colourful Youth writes:

To his friends he’s full of bullshit excuses, to him it’s not that simple. A glimpse of the struggles of a young man with anxiety.

Written by Thomas Arkins and Shireen Shortt.

Jamie is played by actor Aaron Connolly.

H/T: Gary Gannon

This morning.

On RTE’s Morning Ireland.

It had an item on older people losing their homes because they cannot afford to pay their rent.

Charity Alone has said the number of people, aged over 60 and on the social housing list, seeking help from Alone has grown nationally by 11.4% each year between 2013 and 2016.

In Dublin, it went up by 18% in 2015 and in 2016.

Journalist Cian McCormack spoke to a 71-year-old man called Frank who is likely to be homeless next week as the landlord of the house he has been renting for seven years wants him to leave.

Frank has been paying rent of €1,250 a month.

He gets a pension of €150 a week and does odd jobs to make up the difference to make his rent, his bills and to eat.

Frank told Mr McCormack:

“I’m running to stand still. I’m out there and like there’s some weeks, I don’t have work and sometimes the weather is against me.

“But, I mean look, for the last 10 years or so, 12 years, I’ve been lucky. There’s other people there worse than I am.

“At least I can get out of bed in the morning. But what I fear is the day I can’t get out, that I can’t make money…to pay.”

He added:

“I’ve been approved for HAP [Housing Assistance Payment] so HAP, I mean I’ve gone to a few places and looked in and the landlords just look at me and say, like, hang on, they don’t ask me personal questions because they just look at me, my age, and say, ‘what’s wrong?’, to themselves.

“There’s no feedback from them…they have my number. I just don’t get a phone call from them.”

“I have been looking around…seeing if I can get somewhere for maybe €600. They’re just laughing at me.”

Meanwhile…

Also this morning, in the Dail…

‘How could any landlord put a 71-year-old man out on the street’ (The Irish Times)

This morning.

More as we get it.

Shoppers on Grafton Street

The Irish Times reports:

Growth in the Irish economy has again confounded expectations, growing by 10.4 per cent year on year in the third quarter of 2017.

The latest quarterly national accounts show gross domestic product (GDP) accelerated by 4.2 per cent in the third quarter alone amid a strong pick-up in personal consumption.

This was nearly eight times the growth rate recorded in the euro zone as a whole for the third quarter.

The figures also show Gross National Product (GNP), which strips out the effects of multinational profit flows, jumped by 11.9 per cent on a quarterly basis.

Irish economy surges to double-digit growth (Eoin Burke-Kennedy, The Irish Times)

Rollingnews

The Echo Chamber podcast.

Hosts Martin McMahon (top left) and Tony Groves (right( are joined in the ‘tortoise shack’ by writer, journalist and essayist Aaron Vallely (centre).

Aaron writes for The Huffington Post, CounterPunch, HeadStuff and The New Satesman among others and is a passionate voice for the arts.

Martin writes:

We discuss Aaron’s experience of New York and the rise of Donald Trump; the #MeToo phenomenon and how it has empowered so many people and Aaron relates his own personal experience; the Creative Ireland Arts Fund and where the money really goes; The 8th Committee and the likely next steps. And Arron gave us his two recommendations of shows to watch over the Christmas…he’s an absolute gentleman,

The Echo Chamber

Broadsheet.ie