VALERIE HUGHES,
Sir, - Advocates of a Yes vote in the coming referendum rightly express their concern for the enhancement of living conditions in the new applicant countries. The validity and depth of this concern, however, deserve to be tested in regard to how we treat non-nationals who are already living within our borders. In addition, it must be asked if humanitarian concern is so divisible that it stops at the borders of whatever countries are now in the privileged position of entering the EU.
For example, within the existing framework of the European Union, there has been mass deportation of Kosovar refugees from such countries as Gemany and the UK since the war in their country ended. These deportations occur despite the ruined infrastructure, the huge unemployment and catastrophic levels of poverty in Kosovo today. In this connection, it is relevant to cite the recommendation from the International Crisis Group: "Remittances from (Kosovar) émigrés are of crucial importance. . .Given the predicted shortfall in indigenous populations of working age in the countries where the Kosovo diaspora live, especially in Western Europe, a change in immigration policy to give greater flexibility to (Kosovar immigrants) could have advantages for all sides." (ICG, 19th December 2001).
A second category of people within the EU borders comprises asylum-seekers who wish, often at great cost to themselves, to share in the security and prosperity with which Europe is currently blessed. Those who argue in favour of the "human" dimension of the Nice Treaty should surely examine how we are implementing our asylum policy. As of now, the character of many current deportations undermines the Government's expressed desire in its Nice Treaty campaign to share with the applicant countries the EU's high standard of economic achievement and of care for human rights.
One clear injustice in Ireland currently is the inability of an asylum-seeker who has been here for a number of years to make the transition to becoming a legitimate member of the Irish workforce even when a job has been offered. Such a transition was possible until July 1999 but regrettably this has not been renewed. In this regard, the Government's present insistence on those asylum-seekers who have failed to achieve recognition as refugees returning in the first instance to their countries of origin flies in the face of the extreme danger that many of them will experience there, not to speak of the impossibility of their being allowed to return to Ireland to take up a promised job.
It is a fundamental point in the Government's defence of the Nice Treaty that there will be no mass immigration to Ireland from the new applicant countries. In those circumstances, surely we can accommodate the relatively very small number of unsuccessful asylum seekers who wish for imperative humanitarian reasons to live and work in this country.
The cruel deportation of some asylum-seekers - such as in the cases of serious mental breakdown recently reported by The Irish Times - is an implausible basis for accepting the Government's proclaimed concern for the wellbeing of prospective new citizens of the EU. - Yours, etc.,
VALERIE HUGHES,
Cabra,
Dublin 7.