Gaping hole in my gob
I was balmed off there a while ago watching the telly and something felt odd. I had a weird taste in my mouth and after prodding about I found that a filling had just fallen out.
I don’t qualify for PRSI on dental work. 2 years ago that filling cost me €130! I wonder if there is a warranty? Despite being on the dole jobseekers benefit, I still don’t qualify for PRSI on dental work so now I have a great big gaping hole in my gob that I can’t stop prodding with my tongue and more importantly will cost a nice bit to sort out.
So why have I no PRSI? Actually I do but not enough.
If you are aged between 0 and 25 years old you can get whatever you want done to your gob on a reduced rate. If you are over 25 years of age and have spent any period of time where you break your PRSI payments, i.e. Self Employed then you are screwed.
I spent the years 2001 to 2004 as a self employed person. i.e. I was 24 to 29 years of age during that time. I failed to meet the qualifications which were:
- At least 39 paid or credited contributions in the governing contribution year;
- 13 paid contributions in a recent contribution year or
- 26 paid contributions in each of the second and third last contribution years. For claims made in 2007, the second last contribution year is 2005 and the third last contribution year is 2004.
How did I slip through the net?
- In 1997 I entered full time employment for the first time. (I was 21) I have had PRSI paid through various part time jobs up until then. (From 15 years of age)
- In 1999 I changed jobs to another full time position.
- In 2000 I was made redundant – I never signed on the dole (this is the big mistake! (Age 23))
- In 2000 I changed job twice.
- In 2001 I registered myself as self employed.
- In 2004 I took up a full time PAYE position (I’m now 28 years of age at this stage)
- In 2007 I was made redundant again. (Age 31)
If I had known back in 2001 what I know now, then there is no way I would have considered leaving full time PAYE employment. During the years I was self employed I never made much money. I made just enough to get me along but I was sub-contracting for a lot of that time and it was either a feast or a famine. I made barely enough to pay the bills overall and some bills I couldn’t pay and paid the price accordingly.
In a way I’m glad because that moron of a Taoiseach that we have has just given himself a payrise of €31,000 (which is the average industrial wage by the way) which now brings him up to a salary of over €300,000 per year. Not bad for someone who can’t remember borrowing money off friends or writing blank cheques as Minister for Finance. At least over the past 6 years I have made a minimal contribution to his retirement fund.
While Bertie was borrowing money and getting away with it from people he can’t recall, I was forced to account for every cent I earned. I was forced to pay top rates for medical and dental treatment that I couldn’t afford but had to have all the same. I had to pay full whack for everything just because I had the initiative to attempt to make a go of my own business.
In the end I had to capitulate. I got (through a lot of good fortune and some good friends) a PAYE job. I managed to make ends meet and get myself back on my feet again financially. Sadly that ended in May this year. Jobs are being lost here at a staggering rate. I have sat through 16 interviews since the end of May. Five of those positions I interviewed for were pulled by the employer. For two of those five, the employer has sinced ceased their operations in Ireland.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I still have a hole in my tooth which I will have to pay at least €100 to get sorted. You can be sure Bertie gets his teeth looked after for free. But the hole in my tooth will have to wait. Herself and myself have our first baby due in less than two weeks so that is where my priority (and the little cash I have left) lies.
If you are curious to see what sh*t us mere mortals are entitled to then look no further than here:
Treatement Benefit Scheme on Citizensinformation.ie
By the way, I’m also short sighted. That means that I have to wear corrective eye glasses all the time. They are also covered under PRSI except, yes! You guessed it, I’m not covered. If I was to continue recieving my Jobseekers allowance until May 2008 then I would be covered for everything. Hopefully I will find something soon so I hope it may never come to that.
If it’s any consolation [which it isn't!], I was in full time employment from 1971 to 2001 and paid PRSI and PAYE for that full time.
The only problem is that as semi-state employee [RTE] I paid a reduced rate PRSI, so I am entitled to …… Nothing!
Like a hole in the tooth, life sucks sometimes.
P.S. I too wear spectacles, but have very few teeth left
It makes you wonder just what the hell some of us pay PRSI for.
At least while I was working I was entitled to a percentage back in tax relief. There is one option left. I could take myself off up to the University Hospital in Cork and get some student to sort it out for next to nothing pricewise but it’s not bothering me that much yet
You get used to the pain as you grow older!! [A bit like children
]
Today being a bank holiday I think I might just pop over to the pub in the afternoon and see if a few hot toddies will numb the pain.
Hmph, that really does suck Robert, sorry to hear that the health services are a bit on the crappy side…
In Australia the Medicare seems to be working great, except Bush fan Howard has changed quite a bit towards privatization trying to turn Australia into little America… Why do people do that I never understand. There is no service more important than the health and education, and for some mind boggling reason governments all over the world can only find those two services to cut budget back on….
On days like this, reading stories like yours, I wonder if I have done the right thing to follow Niall half way around the world to Ireland, only to start all over again… It passes soon enough though as soon as I spend a few hours in the good company of a lovely Irish person.
That’s happening here too Gaye
You might have noticed recently how the government turfed Bupa out of the market. They reckoned that Bupa had too many younger customers compared to their competitor (VHI). Because of that the government decided that Bupa had to pay the VHI because Bupa had cheaper packages with better cover and was making a profit. VHI were losing customers and money. It is something that really couldn’t be made up!
Of course the fact that the government partly own the VHI has nothing to do with it. So much for competition!
The irony is that as a non-national (I mean that is the sense that you are not Irish!)you only have to be here two years to get full benefits. Social welfare, PRSI etc if you are working.
Herself has full whack because she has been here for over two years which is just as well because I’ve been here all my life and am entitled to fsck all!
The reason every country seems to have health care issues is because in most normal countries it is the single biggest expenditure that a government has. The only exception in the western world is the U.S. where the Military has that accolade.
Here in Ireland our health service has the distinction of having more managers than nurses. The health service have a hiring freeze on new staff yet last week the director of the health services (HSE) got a massive pay rise equal to most peoples annual salary!
Oh! And don’t forget, we have the distinction of having a grotesquely obese and disgusting Minister of Health.
Other than that it’s a great country to live in
Sorry I made a mistake in my last comment. It should have read:
“Oh! And don’t forget, we have the distinction of having a grotesquely obese and disgusting Minister of Health who is nothing more than a gigantic piece of filth who’s failures as minister of health are only in comparison to her own size.”
I have a joke about her on her honeymoon night and it’s class but I’m not sure if I should mention it here! It’s a bit like her: Distasteful.
I’m in a similar boat – a trip back to third level 4 years after leaving college meant I never got enough PRSI paid and any work since then has been contracting.
It’d be nice to get free eye tests, but I’m sold on online spectacles – my last few pairs were EUR18 each from http://www.goggles4u.com, Unfortunately you can’t get dental work done over the internet yet.
Thanks for that link John, definitely worth my while checking them out.
It’s not nice being hit hard in the pocket for something that we should be entitled to.
That’s a lot of information there. I could probably go on and on about any government service lacking the service component in Turkey… BUt that would be the subject of a blog entirely on its own. *sigh*
I really like Ireland and I am glad I am here. Ireland has a huge potential in terms of building efficient services and transforming old practices into new ones that actually serve the citizens. Hopefully, this will happen, regardless of the pace it will.
You’re right there Gaye about governments but I’m glad you like it here
I like it here so much so that I turned down a move to Austria! If anyone here complains about income tax then I just dare them to think about moving to Austria and then they will see how good we have it here!
I know that we all complain about the government no matter what country we live in. To be honest that is only natural. But if we don’t complain nothing will be done
No country is perfect but some are more attractive than others. I know that I am extremely proud of where Ireland is now compared to just 10 years ago. If someone told me 10 years ago that there would be almost a quarter to half a million Polish alone working in Ireland I would have thought that person to be insane.
But this is what happened and I’m very proud that people from other countries now see Ireland as somewhere where they can come and make a (hopefully) happy and productive life. Sometimes I just can’t believe that we have come so far so soon that Ireland is no longer just a place for holidays but is a place where people can come and make a realistic future for themselves.
I just hope it continues and that we all get to benefit from the opportunites that are there for us. And that they are not squandered.
There is a saying here that goes “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”
That can be applied to every country on the face of the earth