A PHOTO came up on my Facebook memories at the weekend. It was a notice from two years ago from our local council stating that buildings were closing due to Covid. Days later our schools closed, then our entire society as we locked down, hunkered down and tried to get through the most gruelling and surreal 24 months in living history.
As we approach the anniversary of Covid coming to our shores and changing all our lives we are not back to normal, we are not on the up, instead we have war on our doorstep and a cost of living crisis impacting on every family here in Northern Ireland.
Families already struggling after Covid has destroyed businesses and livelihoods, face astronomical rises in prices of everyday items, with seemingly little help from government. Oil prices have tripled, electricity has gone up, gas prices are sky rocketing and even the food in our supermarkets has risen in price.
Last week those families who receive Universal Credit were given £200 by the government to help with fuel costs in the crisis. Unfortunately the oil prices had risen so much by the time they received it that amount would have bought around 100 litres, which would last maybe three weeks in a busy family home.
People on Universal Credit need and deserve help. The price cuts will impact more severely on those on low incomes and it is right that any available funds should be directed towards them.
However other families need help from our government also. I know working people who are seriously struggling at the moment and are having to choose between heating and eating. Bills aren't being paid because they have to prioritise feeding their children as the price of everything goes up and their wage stays the same.
People are letting rates bills and TV licensing bills slide, facing prosecution, because they simply can not afford to meet these payments. And I don't blame them. Faced with having to pay your rates bill and buying groceries for the week to feed your kids, I know which one I'd be putting my money towards. People are struggling, people are stressed, people are angry.
The people in power, the people who hold the purse strings, cannot let this situation continue. I know people who say they are travelling to work simply to pay their wages into the petrol pumps. Healthcare workers who are really struggling to not only pay their bills, but to afford the basics, and this is after two years of fighting Covid on the front line.
I know people who aren't putting their heating on at all because they are terrified of using up oil as they can't afford to buy any more. I know longstanding businesses are closing because they can't afford the electricity bills and rates. I know families who are visiting foodbanks for the first time in their lives.
I dearly hope we are not heading straight into another cruel recession, but it looks like it, which will be, I think, the sixth in my lifetime.
The Assembly Election is in six weeks time. Politicians will be looking for your votes. Think hard on your situation in your home, what you are struggling with, what your family are facing. And when they come to your door, ask them exactly what they are doing to help that situation. They have more power than we do as ordinary citizens to help change things.
Everyone is angry at this juncture. These last few years has shown life to be a little harder than it was in the past. Our politicians have the ability to help make things easier for us, by passing bills, by lowering rates, by using government money to direct funds to those who need it, by helping businesses so that they can survive and thrive. They also have it in their gift to sit in the government that rules this corner of the world and display how blatantly out of touch they are with voters by churning out the same tired divisive rhetoric that does not help in the here and now.
I've heard so many people saying they aren't going to vote this time around. They say 'what's the point, it makes no difference'. I say no, get out there because you are angry, vote someone in who will make a difference to you and your family.
America didn't turn up to the polls and they got Trump. People didn't show up to the polls and we got Brexit. Both of those examples made things considerably worse for society. Use the only power you have to make a change, to make that change.
Get out and vote.
