There is always a human story requiring sympathetic understanding behind the statistics and headlines about refugees and asylum-seekers in Ireland and throughout the European Union. This is easily overlooked when emergency measures are introduced to deal with the flow of people, as with the Romanian gypsies who have been smuggled in dreadful conditions to Wexford. Nonetheless it must be recognised that much of the public and private response to their plight in Wexford and elsewhere has been generous and welcoming, despite the attempts to whip up a moral panic in some quarters.
The gypsies or Romanies are a relatively small proportion of the 3,000 or so people who have sought asylum in Ireland this year. They are mostly from Romania, where the gypsy population is estimated at 2.1 million, making them a substantial minority group, as they are in most other central and eastern European states. After suffering genocide under Nazi rule they were forcibly incorporated into the labour force during the communist period; the end of these regimes has made them particularly vulnerable to socio-economic marginalisation and racist scapegoating, provoking successive waves of migration, which has only recently reached Ireland's shores.
Most of their communities would prefer to stay where they are and to organise their own self-help and representative institutions, backed up by much more active human rights provisions. This endeavour has been patchy and slow, in Romania as elsewhere, despite courageous work by many individuals and groups.
Responding to the plight of those Romanies who seek asylum in Ireland will therefore require action on several levels. It is important to ensure that they have a civilised reception after travelling in such atrocious conditions; the burden of care should be spread among those best able to cope and not restricted to particular areas. They are then entitled to prompt and fair hearing of their claims for asylum - and in the meantime they and other refugees should have the chance to work in an economy which has plenty of scope to absorb their skills and work ethics.
Ireland's response to these requirements has been slow and patchy. The Government is now drafting legislation to fine or jail truck drivers and freight companies convicted of carrying illegal immigrants and to confiscate vehicles. This can be an effective means of dissuading those who are trafficking in human misery. It must be accompanied by bilateral pressure on the French authorities to tighten up controls at Cherbourg and elsewhere before there is a tragedy in one of these containers. Regrettably, the proposed Bill will also introduce heavy fines on employers who give work to refugees before their claims have been fully processed.
Beyond that there is an important diplomatic task to convince other EU governments that the Dublin Convention, which is meant to regulate their co-operation on refugees, should be re-examined. It is clearly not working effectively. Beyond that again there is a need to recognise two central realities of contemporary Europe. Immigration has been a positive experience both for host societies and migrant individuals. And in Europe it is best regulated by human rights regimes which give strong protection to persecuted or marginalised groups in those states which aspire to join the EU.