"Mr. Ricci, you have 72 hours." I remember the exact moment my life completely changed. My name is Matteo Ricci. I’m 32. I live in Dublin, out in Swords, with my wife Aoife and our two kids, Sean, who’s 9, and Niamh, who’s 6. Aoife and I moved to Dublin 10 years ago from Dundalk, a town over in County Louth. Showed up with two suitcases and just hoped we’d figure things out. At first, we took whatever work was going, warehouses, cleaning, delivery gigs. Anything to get on our feet. After three years, we finally settled down. I landed a job as an equipment maintenance tech for a manufacturing firm, and Aoife got a job in retail at a clothing shop. It was a good, steady life. And then, 7 years ago, we decided to buy a place. A small two-bedroom apartment in Swords for 240,000. Deposit was small, so monthly payments came out to around 1,100. It was tight, but we managed. That was our life. Until the summer of 2025. In the summer of 2025, the company announced redundancies. I was one of the people let go. I started looking for work straight away, but turns out my line of work in Dublin is in bad shape right now. A lot of plants either shut down or moved to outsourced contract crews. I went to interviews, but every single time they went with someone younger or someone with updated certs on new gear. I spent two months and our last savings getting retrained, but by then there were even fewer openings. For the first six months, we burned through what was left of our savings. Then that ran out too. Aoife tried taking extra shifts, but it just wasn't enough to cover Dublin prices. The missed payments started piling up. One month. Three months. Eight months. The bank was calling every single day. Then came the registered letters. And then the final notice. Total debt: 38,640 euro. If I didn't pay by the deadline, legal proceedings and an eviction notice would start. And then those words: 72 hours. I was standing in the kitchen, my hands literally shaking holding
