public speaking.
The first module that I had was public speaking. My teacher for this was Mr. Wall. At first we discussed key elements in public speaking and watched a few iconic speeches. We were informed that for our project we will have to write and present a speech to someone outside of school and we will get graded on it. We could pick any topic and the speech had to be roughly three minutes long. A slideshow also had to be prepared as well.
We had three weeks to get our speeches to perfection and on the 6th of October we presented them to a nice lady called Irene Burke. At first I was nervous but after a minute or so I found a rhythm and got into it. I was happy with my presentation and my preparation. The topic I chose was homelessness in Ireland. I feel like it is a very relevant topic and also quite important. I was pleased with a result of 83%.
my speech goes as follows: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Benjamin more o’ferrall and I'll be using this time to talk to you about the homeless crisis in Ireland that is going on right now. So what is this crisis I speak of. Well the number of homeless people in Ireland and especially in the city centre are higher than ever.There were 7,941 people homeless in the week of June 19-25th 2017 across Ireland. This number includes adults and children. Although this number does not include what are refereed to as hidden homelessness which is people squatting or couch surfing. The number is only going to go up. In June 2017, there were 1,365 families accessing emergency accommodation, which includes 2,895 children. I think that, that number is staggeringly high.
In Ireland today there is a housing problem and with the housing problem comes a homeless crisis. Ireland does not have a public housing system that meets the needs of the society. Public housing plays a key role in the cuontries housing system so that it can act as a safety net for anyone who can no longer afford private renting or there is no available housing for them on the private market. The best way to fix this problem is just simply to build more houses. This is easier said than done. First off it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. As a temporary solution the government is paying for a percentage of the families to stay in hotels. This is very expensive but it's a fast solution, but it is very difficult to ask a family to live in a small, cramped hotel room especially with young kids. There are no cooking facilities and generally only one room. It costs too much to keep these families in the hotel and also build accommodation so what did we do. Keep them in hotels so they have a roof over their head right now or take them out and leave them on there own until the houses are built. It is just simply too expensive to pay for them to stay in hotels while houses thousands of houses are being built, it's not economically viable. Another option is to freeze the rent prices so that they can not go up so that more people can afford them. Or even have the government pay a portion of your rent. I think the government should focus on finding families suitable accommodation first and then the rest of the homeless population. There are a few different solutions but none of them are the perfect one and they all have their downfalls. That's why it's such a complicated crisis to fix but I know one thing for sure and that's that something has to be done about it.
The lack of public housing is not the only cause of homelessness. It is a very broad topic and each person has different reasons as to why they're homeless. A big factor can be addiction to alcohol or drug abuse or a criminal record. We live in a welfare state which is a system whereby the state undertakes to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, especially those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits. Everybody gets the help that they need. Just because some people made poor life decisions doesn't mean they don't deserve a roof over their head. This is where some people can disagree and a great example of this is the jack Watson story.
Jack Watson tragically died on the streets of Dublin. The government unable to provide him with accommodation. His death had briefly became the face of the crisis, sparking outrage for the governments failure to provide accommodation for the homeless. A vigil was set up for him by home sweet home. It had come to light that while he lived in Australia he had a criminal past. One crime of which was a sexual offence. Once this became public knowledge the vigil was cancelled and he stopped being used as an example. I would feel confident in saying that almost everyone would agree that more should be done for the homeless and it is a problem that needs to be fixed but the jack Watson case sparks a bigger debate. Just because he had a serious criminal record does that mean he did not deserve a roof over his head. Everybody forgot about him or were angry that they felt bad for him but he still died because the governments lacking of accommodation and in Australia he served his time and if you buy into the criminal justice system he is free to live his life.
We don't have the death penalty here in Ireland so nobody deserves to die on our streets.
Thank you for your time.
In Ireland today there is a housing problem and with the housing problem comes a homeless crisis. Ireland does not have a public housing system that meets the needs of the society. Public housing plays a key role in the cuontries housing system so that it can act as a safety net for anyone who can no longer afford private renting or there is no available housing for them on the private market. The best way to fix this problem is just simply to build more houses. This is easier said than done. First off it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. As a temporary solution the government is paying for a percentage of the families to stay in hotels. This is very expensive but it's a fast solution, but it is very difficult to ask a family to live in a small, cramped hotel room especially with young kids. There are no cooking facilities and generally only one room. It costs too much to keep these families in the hotel and also build accommodation so what did we do. Keep them in hotels so they have a roof over their head right now or take them out and leave them on there own until the houses are built. It is just simply too expensive to pay for them to stay in hotels while houses thousands of houses are being built, it's not economically viable. Another option is to freeze the rent prices so that they can not go up so that more people can afford them. Or even have the government pay a portion of your rent. I think the government should focus on finding families suitable accommodation first and then the rest of the homeless population. There are a few different solutions but none of them are the perfect one and they all have their downfalls. That's why it's such a complicated crisis to fix but I know one thing for sure and that's that something has to be done about it.
The lack of public housing is not the only cause of homelessness. It is a very broad topic and each person has different reasons as to why they're homeless. A big factor can be addiction to alcohol or drug abuse or a criminal record. We live in a welfare state which is a system whereby the state undertakes to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, especially those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits. Everybody gets the help that they need. Just because some people made poor life decisions doesn't mean they don't deserve a roof over their head. This is where some people can disagree and a great example of this is the jack Watson story.
Jack Watson tragically died on the streets of Dublin. The government unable to provide him with accommodation. His death had briefly became the face of the crisis, sparking outrage for the governments failure to provide accommodation for the homeless. A vigil was set up for him by home sweet home. It had come to light that while he lived in Australia he had a criminal past. One crime of which was a sexual offence. Once this became public knowledge the vigil was cancelled and he stopped being used as an example. I would feel confident in saying that almost everyone would agree that more should be done for the homeless and it is a problem that needs to be fixed but the jack Watson case sparks a bigger debate. Just because he had a serious criminal record does that mean he did not deserve a roof over his head. Everybody forgot about him or were angry that they felt bad for him but he still died because the governments lacking of accommodation and in Australia he served his time and if you buy into the criminal justice system he is free to live his life.
We don't have the death penalty here in Ireland so nobody deserves to die on our streets.
Thank you for your time.