Sir, - Ireland was able to support a population of eight million people in 1840. Our population is now around five million people. Over these past few months, a few thousand people from the poorer parts of the world have risked their lives and given up their life savings to come here either as political refugees or to share in our new prosperity. These desperate people are being rejected by communities all over this land of a hundred thousand welcomes. A black woman in Mozambique was rescued by helicopter while giving birth in a tree during the recent floods. Would these insecure communities reject her too if she were to find her way here?
I was brought up as a Catholic in Northern Ireland. I left there in 1963 because I was discriminated against by the Protestant majority. We were the blacks of the North, and I know how the immigrants from Nigeria or Romania feel as they are rejected by some Irish communities. I lived in England for 12 years and was welcomed warmly by the English people, for which I am eternally grateful.
I would therefore say to the asylum-seekers that there are many here in Ireland who feel for your plight, and who will work hard to make you welcome. I would say to those communities who use every excuse to reject their less fortunate human beings: think again, you are supposed to be Christians, so open up your hearts and look for reasons to accept these newcomers, rather than planting in your own children the seeds of racism. - Yours, etc.,
Muredach Doherty, Lower Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.