Sir, – It is good to see a new political party "The National Independent Party" being formed. However one of its main policies "it . . . opposes economic migration" (Marie O’Halloran, Home News, January 15th) could cause some problems.
In order not to be accused of hypocrisy any such policy must apply to incoming and outgoing migration. While the number of incoming economic migrants to Ireland is relatively small, the number of Irish who migrated from Ireland is huge, with some 70y million people internationally claiming Irish ancestry. A further complication is that during the last ice age, there were no humans living in Ireland. That means that the ancestors of all persons now living in Ireland were migrants into Ireland for mainly economic reasons.
One of the party spokespersons, Martin Critten is “originally from the north of England”. Perhaps he is an economic migrant. Methinks they will have to think it out again. – Yours, etc,
EDWARD HORGAN,
Newtown,
Castletroy,
Limerick.