Debt is the single biggest issue facing the Irish people this century both on a national and European stage. When history comes to be written the issue of debt in our time will be as big an issue as the famine was in the 19th century. And ironically, the misery caused by both – the deaths, suicides, emigration and homelessness – are utterly preventable. We know that we hold 42 percent of the debt from the banking crisis in Europe. We also know this is wrong, that this is an unjust debt, an odious debt. The current government was voted in three years ago with an overwhelming mandate to renegotiate this debt but they did nothing. They did not even ask for a single cent back. This is why I want to go to Europe to right that wrong. Why should you send me to Europe? I have personally felt the impact of austerity in a real and painful fashion. Last year the banks repossessed my home, my business failed and bailiffs called to my door. I tried the Insolvency Service but I was too broke. I was forced to go bankrupt. But as I hit rock […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Debt, glorious Debt
Debt is Divisive
Debt is Divisive If you prefer you can listen to this essay here in part I, part II and part III – in total it takes less than ten minutes to listen to all three recordings. Let us be very clear about this issue. Debt is divisive. At the risk of being inflammatory, it gets the same level of mixed emotion as the R word. Depending on your perspective, and level of solvency, it can be a very dirty word. Debt is genuinely divisive. Where the needle turns is when the system breaks down, as it has done on an international basis. We are now living in unchartered waters where the rules have changed and the language is polarised. We need to understand what debt is, how we got into it, how we get out of it – and how we deal with debt when the system is broken. And we need to do this without the rhetoric of hate, shame and scapegoating. Nobody said debt was easy but it doesn’t need to be so hard. And it doesn’t need to cost life – no more please. Let’s consider debt. In the good ole days, getting into debt was a […]
Continue readingIt is that simple – really!
History is littered with examples of ordinary people making the impossible possible Think Rosa Parkes and the civil rights movement Think of that student in front of the Tank in Tiananmen Square Think of the little boy and the Emperor’s New Clothes (ok he was fictional) Think of the power of someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain Think of me and give me your vote on May 23rd I have changed the law. I can do so much more. Send me to Europe to ask for our money back. Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘You have not failed until you have quit trying.’ Visit An Uncomfortable Truth documentary here
Continue readingAn Uncomfortable Truth
Irish Film makers launch hard hitting documentary to tell An Uncomfortable Truth CLICK HERE FUNDIT Irish Film Makers Daragh Murphy (November Seven Films) and David Martin Murphy (No Labels) today launch a new hard hitting documentary called An Uncomfortable Truth. The film duo claim the documentary will lay bare the truth behind the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and tell the story that Europe did not want to hear. The documentary takes its focus from one of the first Irish female bankrupts under the new Insolvency laws. Jillian Godsil (the bankruptshee) lost everything in a cruel twist of fate leaving her homeless, her business crushed and without income. At the same time, her searing honesty propelled her front and foremost of every conversation on debt in Ireland – and abroad. In 2011, she made a video to sell her home, it went viral, she went viral and subsequently appeared on television all over the world, telling the story of what it was like in Ireland post the Celtic Tiger. However, as Ireland was forced into the unjust position of propping up the Euro, Europe stopping asking for the truth. In fact, the truth about the […]
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Let’s ALL be somebody!
We are a talkative nation. Put any two Irish people together and we will talk. We will talk in a bus queue, after mass, in the pub, on the street, in our homes and in our offices. And we are not behind in our opinions. We can be quite forceful in our views. And we are also very good about giving out when things are not right. Talk to Joe on RTE radio is one of our longest running programmes and it is amazing the number of topics we can give out about. And when we give out, we often say that somebody should do something about that. Somebody should do something. Well, I decided to be that somebody. It wasn’t that I considered myself better than anyone else at doing something. It wasn’t that I felt I was any more qualified to be that somebody. It wasn’t even that I thought I had a God-given right to be that somebody – I just felt that I had to be the change I wanted to see. So I had to be that somebody. Of course, somebody is also your mother, your sister, your daughter, your wife. Somebody is […]
Continue readingPublic Service
March 20, 2014 I am running for public service. I believe that the past six years have led me to this place. There is a reason for my experience and now I want to turn it into an asset to help others. I am finalising what I can bring to the table and in the interim, here is where it all started – it started with debt. I wonder – about Debt This is a 30 minute video about debt and this is why I am running for public service Here also is my appearance on the RTE news talking about bankruptcy last night- my first official interview as a person looking to stand for public office – but guess what? I’m still saying the same things! RTE About the second minute Thank you Jillian March 20, 2014 Bankrupt There is no one more surprised than myself to be in front of the judge in the High Court on February 17, 2014 and to hear the words that I was declared bankrupt. The surprise lay in the fact of the judgement – how had I, Jillian Godsil, arrived at this point? I had always worked hard, I had been financially independent since a […]
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Through a looking glass, darkly
What has happened with our country? We are going through one of the darkest periods of our modern history, with more people queuing up to see Garth Brooks than demonstrating against our governmental self-inflicted poverty. And when it comes to showing what is happening we are reliant on the outsiders to show the truth, even if we have to view our society through a fake wig and eye lashes. When did the truth become more true when delivered by a man dressed as woman. And please do not get me wrong, I have nothing against a man dressed as a woman, maybe not my man, but I fully support Panti’s dress code, gender code, wig code., but doesn’t it say something when the so called ‘outsiders’ of a society are leading the truth charge? In the same way, feminist, activist, erotica writer Aoife Brennan is leading a little charge all of her own. I interviewed her last year about her first book of erotica and it was all about ‘real world sex’ but the second two books developed into full scale feminism and her trilogy has become thinking women’s erotica. Her erotica is the genre that dares to speak its […]
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This is what bankruptcy looks like…
This is what bankruptcy looks like… Yesterday I handed over €650 to The Insolvency Service of Ireland in order to go bankrupt. This is what the fee looks like: €650 in coins and some fivers and tens. It could be worse. In recent weeks another client of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (IMHO) handed over a cheque from Saint Vincent de Paul for the same purpose. Going bankrupt is not a pleasant action. It is not an easy action. For most people it is the end of the road. The bankrupt may claim it is a new beginning, but it is hard to form a new beginning when you don’t have anything or a job or an income to start over. Bankruptcy is the end of the road. It is the elimination of debt. That is to be welcomed. But it should also be remembered that unlike the high rollers who take this route, who have pensions and salaries and multiple homes, there are many people like myself who have to scrape together the fee, who no longer own a home and who have no means of income except social welfare. […]
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Hoping to be Bankrupt for Christmas …
first printed in IrishCentral on December 14, 2013 The New York Times has thrown cold water onto the success story that is Ireland. It has challenged the public perception peddled by Irish politicians that we are the ‘good boy’ of Europe and that ‘austerity politics are serving us well’. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth and what is emerging today in Ireland is a two tier society with the those in control enjoying large pensions, fat salaries and ‘top-ups’ to their income, while the middle classes have largely been eradicated and along with the poor are faced with stealth taxes; taxes applied universally so that proportionately the less well-off are hit harder. Emigration numbers are at famine levels, suicides now number two a day and some 40percent of all households have no disposal income at the beginning of each month. I can personally attest to the direct impact of austerity on Ireland and I can see no light at the end of the tunnel. Six years ago a perfect storm of divorce and recession left me with a mortgage of €1million on a house worth half that. I accumulated huge legal fees (my divorce lawyer […]
Continue readingDebt, Survival and Hope – please view and share
My friends at SETV asked me if I would talk to camera about my journey so far in debt. I know I am only in the middle. I have not finished my journey. I am still in hock to the banks for more than €1million, my home is repossessed, my business gone, my possessions sold save for a ten year old American Fridge Freeze from my old house, and while that is very good at keeping food cold, it is less reliable as a place to live lol 🙂 I have learnt one thing on this journey, which is far from over, that while worries may assail us on all sides, it is also vital to live even as we struggle. We will not get back the years that debt may steal from us, so the only alternative is to live like crazy, seize the day and love, and breathe, and hope, and be. Always be. This is for anyone dealing with debt. God bless! xx View VIDEO here and please let me know what you think 🙂
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