letter i wrote to minister jan o sullivan last week

[micheal]

Dear minister,

my name is Michael i am a  survivor of institutional abuse and received an award from the redress board. 

In jan 2014 i applied to caranua, to date i have received no help what so ever other than the offer of a gym membership, i have told caranua that i have no way of getting to the gym so the membership is useless to me.

All i asked caranua for was a bicycle, some furniture and help with the house and a cookery course, i was refused everything i asked for other than the gym membership. so i appealed, the appeals officer merely reverted to caranua on all points in my appeal and as such appeal was denied with the caveat that caranua contact me to sort help with transportation, a month has passed since appeal and still no contact. Why cant i avail of the help i need?, Make no mistake there are many more like me where the legislation is being used to discriminate against us, let me explain, i was in 3 different  institutions all of us were boys, i would imagine that most of us followed a similar life path and live in similar conditions, in fact a recent study i read bears out the following, male

abuse  survivors tend to live alone in private rented accommodation, be reclusive, suffer from mental health issues, problems connecting with the outside world to the detriment of of personal and family relationships, i can say yes to all of the above. So by finding ourselves in this situation caranua can provide no help what so ever with home help and housing. Now common sense would dictate that the help be flexible and tailored to each survivor but sadly this is not the case, the help caranua provide rigidly adheres to to a template laid out by Mary Higgins, and if i dont conform to that template i receive no help. This to my mind is  discrimination. 

Now as to why im writing you, in a recent p&q with Clare Daly you were asked about the exceptional circumstance provision in the legislation, to which caranua informed you that, "  Caranua has advised that in light of the fact that this area deals with exceptional circumstances it is not appropriate to put in place strict criteria to define these since it would remove the element of discretion that this provision is designed to provide for.

I have in writhing from caranua that they only use this in medical situations, i have this in writhing, so your answer is at the very least misinformation, the provision was a part of my appeal. quick bio of summer 2014 for me, i was living in the mountains in a transit van i suffer from severe mental health issues, out of sheer desperation i contacted  caranua who would not provide any help telling to contact the SVDP. Now that to my mind is an  exceptional circumstance. I could provide many more shocking examples of dealings with caranua but i wont waste your time.

To finish all i dream about is being able to participate in life have some type of future to look forward to and not feel so ashamed of my self, i thought long and hard about what i applied for to be refused everything was a real blow.

I am just 41 years of age and would give my right arm to have some hope for the future, i merely ask you to let me know where i can get the help i need and escape the daily blackness. Michael

[Rob Northall]

ThanX for Sharing this here.

I look forward to reading her Reply!

[micheal]

Cheers Rob will post it here soon as i get one