Couple desperately trying to get home from Australia
ONE SLIGO COUPLE ARE DESPERATE TO RETURN HOME AFTER BOTH LOSING THEIR JOBS IN AUSTRALIA DUE TO THE OUTBREAK OF COVID-19. RACHEL NORMAN TALKS TO JESSICA FARRY ABOUT THEIR PLIGHT.
FOR Rachel Norman and Darryl Keaney, everything was going well as they began to settle into life in Melbourne Australia. They had spent three months travelling in Asia before arriving in Australia back in January, where they had planned to stay for at least a year, maybe more. But, life doesn’t always go as planned. And now just over two months since they moved there, they are both desperate to come back to Ireland. Both Rachel and Darryl have been laid off having landed dream jobs.
They booked flights home, which were cancelled just days later. And now, with no jobs and funds running out, they are hopeful that the Irish Government will step in to help them and many others who are in the same boat.
“We came on a one year holiday working visa so we had intended to stay here for the year and then we would assess to see would we do farm work to see if we would stay for a second year,” Rachel told The Sligo Champion.
As they began to settle in Melbourne, everything started falling into place nicely for the young couple.
They moved away with hopes of working in careers with fewer opportunities here in Ireland.
Darryl had spent many years working as a soccer coach here in Sligo on a voluntary basis with very few opportunities for paid work.
Rachel was working full-time in Penney’s, but was a make-up artist on the side in her spare time.
“The main reason we came over here was to work in our dream jobs basically. I was working with Benefit. I was absolutely loving it, it was great. Darryl was coaching soccer in a private school and with a club so he was really enjoying it as well. Everything was going great.
“Time was flying by. We were both on casual contracts here, anyone who comes over is put on casual contracts so you’re not tied down to anything so that meant they were able to let us go straight away. We were really enjoying life here, the weather was good, we were working away.
“It took us a while to get settled. I only got my first proper pay-check there two weeks ago. It took us so long to get settled and then this happened.”
Rachel lost her job over two weeks ago, long before Covid-19’s impact was being felt by Australia.
At first, the reality didn’t dawn on Rachel and her partner Darryl. It soon became clear that moving back home may be their best option, with the chances of securing another job slim and cash running out.
If only it was as simple as booking a flight and hopping on it. Things soon started to get even more worrying.
Rachel said: “I got let go nearly two weeks ago at this stage. Not much was really happening here, it was very slow to happen.
“There was a lot more happening at home so we were hearing of everything at home, schools closing, people not going to work and we were here and everything was still going on.
“Everyone was still out and about on the streets, there wasn’t much talk about the virus. There wasn’t that many confirmed cases at the time.
“When I got let go our initial thought wasn’t to come home. We didn’t really think that far ahead, we were talking to family at home and they were like ‘maybe you should think about coming home’ and that wasn’t even on our radar.
“It only hit home before the weekend when we kind of realised that we’re not going to be able to live here or afford to live here anymore.
“Darryl’s Dad got on to the Irish embassy and they actually rang Darryl on Friday and said ‘if you can’t support yourself here for two months you need to get home, you need to get on the next flight’.
“That really worried us and we were like ‘we need to get home’ so we went online and that was Friday night, the earliest flight we could get that wasn’t at a crazy price was for Wednesday.
“We just booked it. It was with Emirates. We couldn’t believe we were coming home.
“It didn’t even enter our minds that they could cancel the flight.
“The girl from the embassy said that the flights would get fewer and we needed to get one pretty quick but that was the earliest one we could get.
“I think the next night I got a notification to say that there was a change with our flight. We were meant to stop over in Dubai for an hour and a half and I got a notification to say that the stopover in Dubai was going to be for 17 hours.
“When we got that we were thinking ‘it doesn’t sound good’. Then on Monday morning we woke up to the news that Emirates had cancelled all their flights.”
Disaster had struck. Suddenly it all felt very real. With fewer and fewer flights still running, their chances of getting a commercial flight aren’t too good.
Others are forking out huge sums to catch a flight home, but not everyone can afford to take that chance in these desperate times.
All they want now is to be at home with their families and friends, but there is no way of telling when that will be.
They aren’t the only ones in this position. Petitions have been set up to try and convince the Government to organise chartered planes to bring stranded people like Rachel and Darryl home from counties such as Australia and New Zealand.
“There’s no other flights really that you would be confident in booking. There are some coming up but they’re all first class and business class and they’re $10,000 - $15,000 which is just crazy money. There’s no guarantee that those flights are going to go either. There’s a high chance that they will get cancelled.
“The other day we said we would go the airport, we thought we might get a flight out in the next day or two. We got there and there was so many people in the same situation. We were all queueing for flight centre. They were trying to book people flights.
“There was a group of Irish lads ahead of us and they had booked a flight for Saturday which was stopping through Hong Kong, that was their second flight to book. Yesterday we saw that Hong Kong weren’t letting anyone transit through their airports.
“Another girl paid crazy money for her flight. We’re in a group now on Facebook to help get everyone home. Everyone’s got together and given their details. We’ve also registered our details with the embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs so they know we’re here. We’ve also been in contact with TDs at home in the hope that they might push it.
“It’s just a waiting game. When you’re sitting around the apartment not doing anything, everyday is just so long. When we were so close to getting home and that’s just been taken away from you.
“The fact that there is no way out the country right now is the scary part. Home just feels so so far away. All we want now is to be at home with everyone.”
The uncertainty is cause for concern. The Covid-19 crisis has moved so quickly that there is no telling what each day might bring.
“We’re trying to take it day by day,” Rachel said. “The most worrying thing is the uncertainty and not knowing when we’re going to get out. Luckily we have two weeks left in our apartment but after that we don’t know what we’re going to do. Our family are worried.
“Nobody knew that it was going to get this bad. They are trying their best to keep us positive and ‘ the government have to get you home’ but as everyday goes by we’re kind of like ‘God will we ever get home’.
“We just don’t know and that’s the scary part. We could be still here in a month. We could be gone home. Luckily we have each other.
“If I was on my own or Darryl on his own it would be a very scary position because the chances are we wouldn’t still be in our apartment. We could be in a hostel on our own.”
They don’t want to borrow anymore money off anyone close to them. Rachel and Darryl just want to get home. They have nothing to fall back on in Australia.
“We’re trying to keep each other’s spirits up and just take it day by day. It’s changing so quickly, there’s always something new everyday.
“I’m just constantly on my phone trying to keep up to date with all the news and the comments and what people are putting up online. I don’t want to miss out on anything.
“It’s quite scary, especially when we’re here and we don’t have any security. We don’t have anything to fall back on. Family are offering to give us money and to help us out but we just want to get home now. We’ve borrowed so much already to help us and we don’t want to be here anymore as awful as that sounds.”
Worst case scenario, there are family friends living in the Melbourne suburbs who have offered Darryl and Rachel a place to stay if they don’t get home before they have to move out of their apartment.
“They have offered to help us out and we can stay with them for as long as we can which is very fortunate because all the hostels are starting to close down with the strict distancing rules and all of that. Nobody wants to be stuck in a hostel when this is going on, it’s not the best place to be. We do have somewhere to stay thankfully and we’re so grateful for that.”
Thinking they were getting home last week, they sold their fridge among many other things.
Luckily, they didn’t sell everything: “We came back (from the airport) and we just have our bed and television, and table and chairs.
“Thankfully we still have them. We’re just lucky we didn’t give the keys away straight away cause it would have been a nightmare.”
Covid-19 was a slow burner in Australia, but it has eventually taken hold of the country which has now slowly started to implement measures to try and slow it down.
“It’s definitely got quieter but there are a lot of people out on the streets. Cafes are still open but they are only doing takeaway service and they’re only allowing one person in at a time,” Rachel explained.
“We just went for a walk today to get out. There’s a shopping centre beside us and all the shops are more or less closed. There’s a few people around. The supermarket was very busy today. I heard at home that there’s tape on the ground in the supermarkets to make sure people are keeping their distance.
“There’s nothing like that here. It’s normal here in the supermarkets, a lot of people close to each other. The streets have got quieter, you know that people are aware of it now. Lots of people are wearing masks. Here the schools only closed this week over here.
“There are still a lot of people out. I feel like the Government here have been very slow taking these measures and doing this because the confirmed cases have risen dramatically in the last two or three days here. I think it’s only going to get worse.”
There are many people in the same position. A number of healthcare workers who had quit their jobs in Australia to come home and fight the virus were struggling to find flights home until the Irish government stepped in.
Last Wednesday, the Government announced that 170 Irish citizens would depart Perth on a flight that would transit through the UK.