An Irish woman has been forced to choose between paying her rent or buying food as the cost of living spirals.
Karina O’Dowd has Type 1 diabetes and since the pandemic she has become visually impaired as her condition gets worse. Karina requires a specific diet, but unfortunately she’s struggling to afford the food due to expensive rent.
She told Dublin Live: “Every week I get paid on a Friday. As soon as I get paid everything is gone. I’ve to decide whether to pay rent or buy food. Most likely I have to pay rent, I've no choice, I need a roof over my head.
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“I’m a Type 1 diabetic so I need food as well. I need fresh food a lot of the time, the likes of processed food is full of sugar and carbs. It’s harder to control my diabetes with that type of food whereas if I buy fresh food every week, it’s so much easier but it all adds up.
“If my diabetes is out of control it affects everything with my health. I'm visually impaired now because of how uncontrolled my diabetes has been the past two years.”
Karina’s money struggles have not only had a physically impact, but her mental health has suffered with the growing worries. She feels that she would have to emigrate to live comfortably.
The 28-year-old said: “Over the pandemic I got a couple of tickets as presents and I was looking forward to them but I was thinking about how am I going to pay for drinks, food, things like that when I'm out. I’d a concert in September and we’d accommodation booked in advance and I thought ‘how am I going to pay for it?’
“The good thing was that it was rescheduled again so I thought I'd have another few months to try and figure out how I'm going to afford it. Those little things, there’s nothing to look forward to. One thing I always said when I was feeling down is that I had something to look forward to whereas now, I can't.
“If I’d the choice I'd emigrate. Ireland is the best for insulin strips, all the medication I have from my knowledge. But if I emigrated, it would be my biggest worry that I wouldn't be able to get access to it or it’d cost a fortune to pay.
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“I’m very family oriented anyways, I'm very close to my parents, my siblings and their children. The thought of leaving them, I don't want to do it. But if nothings going to change, I might have to because I do wish I lived somewhere else."
Karina moved to Sligo five years ago and was on disability benefit at the time because she had ongoing health problems. But when her boyfriend lost his job during the pandemic, she went back to college and now has a job to make ends meet.
“Before the pandemic, my boyfriend lost his job and we were both thinking 'what would we do?,'" she added. “I went back to college and I did a level 5 in legal studies and a level 6 in business management.
“I got a job with the CE scheme in April and I work three days a week. I get paid very little for it and we’re a one income household. We’re trying to find work but we’re getting rejection letters right, left and centre. With rent, food, electricity going up, we’re still on the same pay and it’s impossible to keep up.”
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