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Two Sugars: via Intern Ireland

Documentary explores what it's like to be an intern in Ireland

One on the interns said that after the internship “It was like nothing, as if it wasn’t there”.

INTERNSHIPS AND MOST notably unpaid internships are a huge topic in Ireland.

Unemployment is still high yet thousands of students are graduating every year looking for work.

‘Two Sugars: Intern Ireland’ is a documentary that looks at the experiences of some people who are interning in Ireland.

One of the people in the documentary describes the situation for interns as extremely hard, “If you don’t do an internship, it’s very difficult to get a job.

You need money to live and it’s difficult when you’re an intern, extremely difficult.

Tess Motherway made the documentary as she was curious to find out the experiences of other interns after she did one herself.

She told TheJournal.ie that she did a nine month intership about two years ago when the JobBridge scheme was in its infancy.

“I decided to do an internship to get practical experience and it wasn’t a totally terrible experience at all, parts of it were really good and I did get good experience but it was very difficult at times.

My problems were with the JobBridge programme itself.

Speaking about how she approached the documentary, Motherway said:

“My intention was not to make an expose type documentary, but rather a piece about the interns themselves, the people behind the numbers – their experience, their worries and thoughts for their future”.

So what did she find?

The documentary mainly deals with four people, two of them were on a JobBridge scheme and two were completely unpaid.

Tess said that the companies they worked for were good to them but that the biggest problem is that it’s just one internship to the next.

The interns in the documentary explained that they felt they didn’t really have much choice with one intern describing it as the “only option”.

“For me it wasn’t a natural step, it was kind of like ‘well I don’t really have that much choice’.”

Another said:

This is the only thing that you can do to try and improve your job prospects, I don’t say I wish I hadn’t done it. It was like nothing, as if it wasn’t there.

Tess said “It turns into a bit of a cycle…it’s unpaid work and it’s difficult because you’re trying to build up your CV but the main option after one internship is just to go to the next.

It does happen that interns sometimes land a full time job from an internship but it’s very very rare.

The documentary is in the final stages of production but here’s a trailer to give you a taste:

 

(TwoSugars:InternIrelandTrailer/YouTube)

 

Read: Marchers in Dublin City want JobBridge to be scrapped>

Read: Sligo has the highest rate of people on JobBridge right now>

Read: SuperValu store seeks off licence, fresh food, and butcher interns>

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46 Comments
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    Mute AnthonyK
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    Oct 1st 2024, 1:52 PM

    A precedence has been set with this. Well meaning as it is. Will not other survivors of state ineffectiveness want something similar.

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    Mute ben wu
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:02 PM

    @AnthonyK: At a risk of sounding controversial, I think this should have been dealt with under some form of compensation or redress rather than some blanket thing.
    That it doesn’t preclude future settlements is an odd thing.
    However, I’m more onboard with the Gov actually doing something rather than nothing for those people it’s completely failed.

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    Mute Niall English
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:00 PM

    maybe hold tony hoolahan to account? no, no, that would be too much to expect of this snide government.

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:03 PM

    @Niall English: What specifically should he be held to account for?

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    Mute ....
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:07 PM

    Are they going to do this for all individuals who have been failed by the state (and how is that defined)? There’s plenty of people who have suffered, including Stardust victims, people who can’t get or afford homes.

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:06 PM

    The amount of misinformation out there around what happened with cervical check is mind-blowing. The way some people talk you’d swear that the testing service actually gave people cancer.

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    Mute Brian D'Arcy
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    Oct 1st 2024, 4:58 PM

    @Jason Memail: Quite the opposite, it didn’t tell them that they had cancer so they didn’t receive the treatment they needed, in a nutshell

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 2nd 2024, 12:37 AM

    @Brian D’Arcy: That’s absolutely false, and part of the misinformation that’s common on this subject. 1) These women received tests from cervical check which told them that cancer cells were not present. 2) These women subsequently developed cancer, and a review of their original tests was carried out. 3) The reviews showed that the earlier tests missed what may have been cancerous cells, with these reviews aided by the fact that the reviewers knew what they were looking for, since the patients had developed cancer.

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 2nd 2024, 12:37 AM

    @Jason Memail: 4) The decision was made, and this is the real crux of the issue, not to go back and tell those women that the earlier tests missed the potentially cancerous cells, mainly because what good would it do? They now had cancer and knowing an earlier test missed it wouldn’t change that. 5) Overall, the suggestion that cervical check didn’t tell these people they had cancer is demonstrably false, because the only reason the reviews were carried out on the initial tests is because they had cancer, which they knew about. 6) Going back and checking original tests when something like this happens is standard practice, and the right thing to do in order to improve future testing, but

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 2nd 2024, 12:37 AM

    @Jason Memail: 7) you can argue whether or not it was the right decision not to inform people about what the earlier tests missed, but it would not and could not have changed the fact that they now, sadly, had cancer, and 8) Knowing that an earlier test missed something could not have allowed them to start treatment earlier, because it’s in the oast. 9) If you want to know the specifics of it, I’d suggest checking out care2much on Twitter, who has written some incredibly detailed threads on the subject.

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    Mute silvery moon
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    Oct 1st 2024, 4:59 PM

    While this is welcome and like one commentor said that it should have been done with compensation.
    As a survivor of the industrial state/religious run institutions we never got compensation we were give an “Award” as if we won something, we cannot get enhanced medical cards that the survivors from the mother and baby home were afforded, we cannot get a contributary pension even though we had to work in these institutions, we now get another slap in the face by being excluded from theses tax benefits. I live in a council house and am grateful for that, I live with my ill husband and disabled totally dependant 23 year old son was told that I can purchase the house for a minimum of between 60 and 80 thousand euro, cannot get a mortgage as my husband is 70 as the cut off is 69 and we’ve have no where to go to help buy the house so our disabled son would have a roof over his head if anything happened to us.

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