Thursday, September 27, 2012

Suicide and the self employed.

Anybody who is self employed is fighting a losing battle against the stinginess of "our "Banks ,the austerity programme and the ocean of over regulation and multiplicity of State quangos and Government Departments.which take up disproportionate time and impose impossible conditions on these unfortunate people.Every one of these  is trying to outdo the other in its zealousness to achieve preset targets and only  the odd decent public servant with a modicum of commonsense makes the existence of the self employed normally bearable.
The powers theses quangos have is frightening and small traders haven't got the resources nor expertise to play them on a level playing field.All it takes is one contrary person to shut down your business and traders live in a permanent state of fear.
Unless the Government immediately  keeps its promise to whittle away all this bureaucracy there is absolutely no hope of the employment numbers creeping back up as many small businesses are on the verge of shutting in the short term.
For a start there a should be a rule brought in which would limit the number of agencies who could visit any trader to a maximum of two per year and no more.This should be administratively possible.
The suicide rate amongst men is horrendous.I guess it is under reported.For example how would you know whether a one vehicle accident was accidental or deliberate , whether a man drowned himself or fell into the river or whether an unwitnessed death by machinery was accidental or deliberate.
Now back to the suicide rate amongst the self employed.
Within five miles of Dunderry six men I know of ,and I wouldn't know all the suicides within this radius ,had one thing in common,that is they were self employed.
I don't know what drove these men to take their own lives but strongly suspect that one or other of the agencies above were actively pursuing them or interacting with them..
It would be interesting to find out if our State is driving these people over the edge.
It wouldn't be too hard to find out.If the political will is there each Government and State Department ,Quango and Bank should be required to detail their involvement with the deceased in the run up to the suicide.
Will it happen.Probably not because there is no real will to do something about it other than to wring hands when opportune.

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