GARY KING,
Sir, - I am writing to express my outrage at the blatantly racist comments on asylum-seekers by the Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North-Central, Noel O'Flynn, as reported by Dick Hogan (Southern Report, January 29th). We have just had the death of a young Chinese man in a racially motivated attack in Dublin. When opportunist politicians try to exploit the asylum issue they create a nightmarish atmosphere for refugees living in this country.
Isn't it time that the likes of Mr O'Flynn were properly sanctioned? Otherwise they'll just continue making inflammatory statements. The motivation for his outburst is obvious. In 1997 Fianna Fáil, with 35.5 per cent of the vote, won a fluke third seat in the constituency of Cork North-Central.
The party's hold on that seat is tenuous and now that the general election of 2002 is impending there will be an intense dogfight between the three outgoing Fianna Fail TDs, Dan Wallace, Billy Kelleher and the last elected, Noel O'Flynn. It is appalling to think that innocent members of Cork's asylum community could suffer because of internal party shenanigans.
Noel O'Flynn's targeting of asylum seekers is a cynical and vote-getting exercise. If Fianna Fáil had any shred of decency, his statement would be condemned, he would be removed as a Dáil candidate and expelled from the party. There must also be grounds for prosecuting him under the Incitement to Hatred Act, or is that just a meaningless piece of paper?
Tough penalties need to be imposed on politicians who launch verbal racist attacks on minority communities. As well as being fined they should be permanently barred from seeking election to public office. Something like this should have been applied to the Fine Gael councillor from Mayo, John Flannery, when four years ago he made the outrageous call for the electronic tagging of members of the Travelling community. The fact that Fine Gael reselected him as a local government candidate says everything about its commitment to human rights.
Noel O'Flynn isn't the only candidate in Cork North-Central playing the "race card". The former Labour party councillor, Joe O'Callaghan, is going to stand as an independent and is proud of the fact that he started the ball rolling on this current asylum "debate" in Cork. I remember him from the time that I was a member of the Labour party and for some bizarre reason he was considered to be a left-winger. - Yours, etc.,
GARY KING,
Ballybane,
Galway.