Not such a good life on Dole

Today an article entitled ‘Welcome to the good life on welfare-  how Polish waitress embraced La Dole-ce Vita’ was published in the Irish Independent.  The article is quite inflammatory and injects opinion into report.  There are quite a number of discrepancies in the article, which make it for incredible reading.

The Polish Ambassador has advised, that the article presented in the Irish Independent and that presented in the original version in Gazeta Wyborcza are very different.   The Irish Independent article says that ‘Magda’ refers to her life as a ‘Hawaiian massage’.  The Ambassador says ‘she has done a course in massage and hope to open her own business relating to that area’, which is the very type of initiative the Irish government has been encouraging.

The tone in the article describing the ‘wonderful golf courses’, implies they are getting their green fees waived, when this is obviously not the case.

While on the one hand, the county is described by Magda as a ‘s***hole’ and on the other as an area of ‘beautiful scenerey’ .  Again the Ambassador advises that in the original Polish version of the article Magda is very positive about county Donegal but that others, whoever they may be, have described it as a ‘s***hole’

Show Racism the Red Card Co-ordinator Garrett Mullan said:  ‘It is unfortunate this article was published in the manner it was because the version in the Polish newspaper and that in the Irish Independent are very different from each other.  Media outlets have a particular responsibility for accurate reporting, particularly in this current climate, as we must be on the guard against racist attitudes increasing within our population.