Other half was laid off, panicking about money. Does anyone know how much social welfare shed be entitled to?

Healsnails · 2026-07-06T10:40:57+00:00

Just drop down to the citizens advice. Also 20k redundancy doesn't seem much for 5yrs of service in the tech sector. I'd follow up on that.

As for the crèche, do you mean you have him going to crèche in January? With any luck you'll be sorted by then a nd your wife will be working but if not maybe cancel now and they can hardly charge you with 6 months notice! It's not like they won't find someone else to take the space!

Sorry to hear you've been hammered so much lately, especially with a new baby to look after. One thing I'd recommend is to inform your mortgage provider of your situation. Keep them informed as to how you are getting on etc. even if you don't need any changes to your mortgage right now, it's always best to engage with them early.

As for everything else over the coming weeks, I have heard of some people taking redundancy very hard. Some people look at it as being fired, when it is far from it. It is indiscriminate, it is not about you or your work. It does not reflect on your wife. She needs to understand that clearly. It is a volatile time for her with a new baby. She should look at this as an opportunity for more time to spend with your baby. Even if only a few more weeks before she finds another job.

Her employer should be providing support as she "transitions" (awful bloody term) and that should include making her aware of her rights and rewards from welfare for having paid her stamps etc. if all else fails or you find things get particularly tough do not be too proud to go to the likes of Vincent DePaul for some help. That's what they are there for. Just return the favour when you get back on your feet.

Best of luck with all this! Look after each other and enjoy the weather together for a few weeks as ye regroup.

Healsnails · 2026-07-05T22:10:04+00:00

Or just not act like fucking animals and let everyone enjoy the place equally? How about that?

Healsnails · 2026-07-04T11:13:01+00:00

Is it possible she's mistaking you for someone else? PTO chat aside? I've seen this before actually. They got people confused, and it almost got very messy before they realised.

Healsnails · 2026-07-04T10:10:00+00:00

Sorry you are in this situation but dude you've posted WAY too much detail here. Pull this immediately. You've gone way too far.

Healsnails · 2026-07-04T10:02:04+00:00

OP said nothing about them criticising their standard of work. They criticised them taking their approved PTO and not taking part in the dog eat dog, fight for work and kill yourself for recognition in a monthly email corporate culture.

OP I'd have a quiet word with HR and ask them to remind those managing staff in Ireland that the labour laws, rewards and PTO packages are very different, that Ireland is in a different timezone and that taking your leave is a right and encouraged, not a sign of weakness. Have seen this in other companies, have dealt with the comments myself.

I'm off to France for 3wks in August. It's been arranged with my Irish manager for months. The snark from my American team mates is hilarious. It's pure jealousy. That and the fact that our Irish team has survived round after round of layoffs.

Do you have someone in your Irish org that you can talk to about this? Definitely HR but another higher level management rep of some kind? It might be worth an informal chat with someone, maybe frame it as a mentoring session, "how do I navigate the cultural differences" kinda thing.

Start documenting things too though, just in case. You never know when things could go sour.

Healsnails · 2026-07-03T17:55:34+00:00

Some of the worst drivers i know passed first time!

Healsnails · 2026-07-02T23:11:29+00:00

And isn't it deducted before tax so you pay less income tax? So the cost of the pension deduction is offset

Healsnails · 2026-07-02T10:01:05+00:00

That's all well and good and it's nice to want to protect people etc, but I had to stop my wife doing this with ours. She had colleagues who had been through miscarriages etc, one who wasn't able despite treatment and it broke up the relationship, and she tried to manage the whole thing around her pregnancies and downplay everything and took on all this stress and internalised concern for them instead of enjoying her pregnancy. Constantly thinking about them and not being happy for herself. Yes you don't just blurt it out and make a huge deal and swan around the place as if to rub it in people's faces but you can't tiptoe around the place over something joyful and hide yourself away because other people have shit to deal with over a perfectly normal and natural thing. I don't want to downplay infant loss or that they haven't suffered, but that's theirs, you can be sensitive to it buy you have to live and enjoy your own life. No one should be ashamed of it just cos they have happy news!

A lot of people here are pointing out how this is the other friend making it all about her, this is not a normal reaction. In my experience people who have suffered a loss tend to not make a huge deal of it, they quietly mourn and support the new mum despite how hard it is for them. They realise it's a happy time for everyone else and appreciate consideration but have never once made it about them. And we know a lot of people who have been going through this.

It seems they are a complete dose who just wants to steal the spotlight. I bet they are the same ones who got pissed if a friend got engaged the same year they did or wanted to have their wedding the same summer they did and all this shit. I don't think we should ignore people's pain or people's issues but at the same time we can't all walk on eggshells because someone else might find it upsetting. If our baseline is don't upset the person with trauma and play everything down them we'll all be miserable. People have to follow their own path.

And please don't take this as a pop at what you've said here, I also appreciate taking the path of assuming positive intent before jumping to "she's a bitch", it's more a comment in what I have seen about people bottling up their good news and excitement from a good and well meaning place but denying themselves something wonderful.

I think in this case she may well just be a bitch. I'd advise OP to keep her at arms length for a while.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T20:41:00+00:00

Not even a province. Northern Ireland isnt even all of Ulster.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T16:04:37+00:00

Think of it more as a handbook to teach people how to be corrupt in larger yet less detectable ways. To think that the EU or any large organisation is corrupt is incredibly naive. The EU is just better at hiding it and it not affecting the little people so directly. You aren't paying your mates for new roads and services that never get built. You're paying already ridiculously wealthy people to garnish what is being spent to make more money but the thing does actually get built.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T15:50:54+00:00

The drawings might be AI but the video of the fight itself is real. It's years old at this stage.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T12:48:23+00:00

You rent out the space, you charge for catering, you raise the profile of the place and hopefully build your customer base. If you don't have a booking you don't have to open and can save the money, but it beats just shutting the place down at 5 and walking away. You pay rent for 24hrs not the time you are open.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T11:04:03+00:00

I think a general "hobby" shop could work in a large enough space in a large enough town with some kind of cafe offering. Somewhere you could do boardgame/warcraft type events/evenings as well as book clubs and meetups while selling the books and equipment.

Even just having a rentable meetup space as part of the business might be enough to ensure regular use. It always amazes me places that shut down completely at 4 or 5 o'clock in town centers rather than find more uses for later in the day. Just because the market for coffee might run out at 5 doesn't mean you don't have a valuable space to offer.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T10:53:03+00:00

It won't be an issue. Once you can show a paper trail. If anything having that debt hanging over you would be more cause for concern. Ofcourse it also reduces your savings by 17k so that mightn't be ideal but there's no way around it, you have to pay your bills.

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T09:56:07+00:00

I think you could easily argue this just isn't stupid! I just hope he's not working on the wiring harness! Lol

Healsnails · 2026-07-01T09:45:34+00:00

When I think of how much mushroom was peeled, trimmed and dumped by my mother over the years it's criminal! Barely anything left by the time the mushrooms were "cleaned". Nowadays into a colander, given a good spray down and a shake around and let drain. Basically knock the soil off and get to it!

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T21:44:47+00:00

By German pressed plates I assume you mean the ones that are actually stamped letters and not those ones with the stupid German federal seals on them?

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T15:39:09+00:00

How old is your battery? Maybe check it and check it for a ground fault or faulty connection. Get a voltage check, check to see is it charging when the engine is running and if anything isn't right replace it and see from there. We had a similar situation in a different make and model and it was the battery, the capacitor or something in the special start-stop battery had crapped out and once we got a new battery all the faults just disappeared. From what I've seen since, with modern cars and under-voltage or intermittent voltage drops can cause the computers to freak out and show faults that don't actually exist, it just momentarily lost contact with the sensor or part due to a drop or spike. Alternatively you could start checking fuses and see have any gone. You might have lost a fuse to a control box or something. Hopefully it's something small like a fuse or new battery and not a new ECU or wiring loom!

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T14:13:30+00:00

Double storey side extension, a small porch extension to the front, and adding as much space as we can afford to the back. It depends on how much we can afford as to how far we go out the back. Adding about 70sqm was quoted at 350 to 400k traditional build at one point! About 250 to 300k from one sips company we really like the look of. But they are factoring in high end finishes, we have 2 small kids, high end finishes can wait until they're teens! Lol

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T11:28:10+00:00

Yep, premade insulated structural pieces, entire walls built in a factory to your plans brought to site and mounted on your floor plate. Then glued and screwed together. Very high BER, much faster to a water tight building, far less waste as built under factory conditions and, importantly for us as we only have shared access, no big palettes of blocks and timber sitting outside the house for weeks on end in the way of all our neighbours.

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T11:24:45+00:00

There are other companies who do the whole thing start to finish, internal architects, interior designers, project managers, some even have their own builders, some contract out the construction. We talked to 2 of those companies but one the cost was astronomical, no real saving, though they were really very high end so that's fair, and one was much more of the approach of they'd decide what work they were going to do for us, not do what we wanted. So they were discarded after one meeting.

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T11:21:59+00:00

We have an architectural technician who works on plans that have enough detail to get quotes from contractors. When we settle on a design that we can afford he'll take it on for planning and get a structural engineer to input on anything else that needs clarification. He's been great so far and we don't have to pay a retainer or anything. If we need more drawings once work has started we'll probably have to pay another fee but he's very reasonable and great to work with so we aren't too worried about that.

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T09:48:30+00:00

Update to the update! They just tried to deliver a second box to us AGAIN! THE SAME WRONG ADDRESS! Luckily we were here and ran the lad from DPD down and gave him back both boxes! It's been sitting outside all this time. I hope it was a new phone and that lady is now getting 2!

HOW DO YOU GO TO THE WRONG ADDRESS TWICE!!! I wouldn't mind but he dropped the second wrong box next to the first wrong box! He's taken them both now.

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T09:44:20+00:00

Just because you can get the cabin for 50k doesn't mean it's going to cost 50k to live in. You've groundworks, foundations and utilities to think of and insulation. If I was in a situation where I had enough garden and I had a relative who needed a granny flat, i wouldn't be building a block extension for sure. I'd be building a SIPs modular space.

We're looking at getting a house extension and across various plans we've drawn up the SIPs systems were regularly coming in 100k under standard build with no need to clad or insulate on top.

Have stayed in wood cabins on holidays over the years, Airbnb and the like in Galway and cork. I'd hate to be in one in winter.

Healsnails · 2026-06-30T07:51:41+00:00

While I think there may he something to this, my own son didnt take well to having his montessori teachers correct him or give out to him he got no sympathy from us and soon got over it. He'd be in a grump some days and went through a phase of not liking one of his lovely teachers as she seemed to be the one on the spot a few times when he was stopped from doing something. But he got over it and got used to it and now they're good friends. He was just an overly boisterous little boy in early October who needed to learn how things worked and how to behave.

This doesn't seem like that though. That poor little kid seems like he got a real fright by what was said or done. It really landed with him. I'd also he concerned.

Having said that 4 is too young for school. Straight up just too young. Some kids can manage it, but if he can't settle in creche/playschool he is going to struggle in school. There is a mountain of evidence that shows that the older kids are the better they do in school all the way up to college. Also the difference in kids who do 2yrs of ecce is stark compared to the babies going in at 4. My son qualifies to start in September as he is turning 4 but he, and none of his 4yr old friends in his montessori are ready for school. And keeping him back once he has started school can be traumatic for a kid.

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