Sir, – Justine McCarthy’s argument seems to be that the Government is busily heaping up its own funeral pyre by caving into the protesters now emerging everywhere across the State where they try and house international protection applicants (Opinion & Analysis, January 12th). I can’t be the only one struggling to follow her logic here. Does she think the Government’s electoral prospects will be improved by having to eventually arrest and prosecute, say, middle-aged local mothers who won’t abandon their protest at these premises and “sit-in” or otherwise commit themselves to a continuing obstruction? How exactly does she think it will go down locally where “Mrs Murphy from up the road” has been arrested and is up in court for obstructing the conversion of the “old hotel” into accommodation for dozens of men who may have lost their documentation between getting on the flight and presenting themselves to the – apparently unbothered – official checks on arrival? How does she think that will play outside the gates of the local primary school or in the pub?
Your columnist is a fine writer and a very seasoned observer of political life, that is why I cannot accept her playing the electoral ingénue on this question. There’s a point at which jaw-jutting principal in the face of overwhelming evidence becomes jaw-dropping naivete, and I respectfully suggest that declaring that a Government is damaging its Irish electoral prospects by elevating the firmly expressed wishes of Irish voters over the interests of non-voting asylum seekers is very far past that point. You’re entitled to disagree with that elevation but you’re surely not going to question its electoral logic?
It is becoming obvious that Government policy on international protection and its non-administration of same have lost both the support and confidence of a very large portion – and possibly the majority – of the Irish electorate. This is a real problem that’s bordered on every side by real considerations and mostly legitimate pressures. Waving away the first and most obvious of those pressures – the need for policy to, in some way, reflect an electorate – won’t help anyone and reinforces the “See, I told you!” arguments of those elements that I suspect and hope Justine McCarthy is most nervous about. – Yours, etc,
CATHAL MacCARTHY,
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Limerick.
Sir, – Kathy Sheridan conflates international protection applicants and refugees (“Demonisation of single, migrant men has bounced from far-right into the mainstream”, Opinion & Analysis, January 10th). Applicants are not refugees unless given such status following an interview by the International Protection Office, which may take more than 12 months, given the current backlog. I agree that your columnist has a point on far-right tropes gaining ground in some of the body politic. However, she is silent on the remarkably high number of persons (mainly male) who present with no documents when claiming international protection, as well as the revelation from Minister for Justice Helen McEntee recently that over 75 per cent of last year’s applicants presented at the International Protection Office offices rather than Dublin Airport or at ports.
Both are food for thought on the bona fides of the applicants. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL FLYNN,
Dublin 13.