One For One

Over a month since I left Malaysia to live in Ireland and still no luck on the housing front.

Since the time we arrived, we’ve had a grand total of zero viewings. It’s shocking how quickly houses get snatched up as soon as it’s up for let. Nothing ever stays for more than a week on the market.

Dublin was a lost cause from the get go. For the same price of a room, we could live in a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom semi-detached house anywhere else in Ireland. The drawback of that is a lack of public transport. If you’re lucky, there’s a petrol station that doubles as a diner, post office, and a mini mart within walking distance. If not, you’re left with buses that come by once every two hours to take you to the next town.

We’re lucky to have friends, who left just a couple of years before and were willing to house us until we found our own.

They sheltered us, gave us rooms to work in, drawers to fill but most crucially a proof of address. We couldn’t have sort most of our administrative tasks if it weren’t for their generosity.

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In theory, it should be a straight-forward process for me to remain in Ireland with all my papers in order. But KL has conditioned me to never trust the system and to always anticipate fuckery when dealing with pencil-pushers and box-tickers.

I walked into the Garda station with a thick file of documents ready for any requests they might throw at me. But before the interview even began, Michael, the police officer greeted me with a cheery “Welcome to Ireland!” and I suddenly realised that Malaysia is not normal.

He gave me 3 years (the maximum for an Irish Residence Permit) and after two weeks I received the physical ID in the mail.

But even with open arms, Ireland isn’t perfect. The crumbling state of their healthcare system post-Brexit and Covid-19 has made it difficult for me to access the medication I was used to getting back home.

It is unthinkable, not to mention grossly negligent, that in a first world country, I would be rejected for life-saving meds just because I wasn’t diagnosed here.

Even with all the documents and papers from back home proving that my medication was necessary, there are long approval times and waiting lists. Many hoops to jump through before I would be considered a spot in their system.

Fortunately many people came through in my time of crisis and with the help of an auntie who didn’t mind bending the rules a little, we got a hold of some medication to last me a while.

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Some days it feels as if I’ve traded in one trauma for another. The rising living, housing, and energy costs coupled with the inaccessible healthcare makes me wonder if there is no place for me in this world that I can breathe easy.

Maybe the world is your oyster but life is a compartment plate and you have to choose which freedoms to take and which to sacrifice.