PAUL DALY,
Sir, - It is regrettable indeed that no leading European politician has yet addressed the core cause of immigration into the EU. Clearly, it is abject poverty: these people are, as Michael McDowell says, "the huddled masses of the world".
Human nature being what it is, they want to share in some of our wealth. The only ways to do this are to allow them to immigrate into Europe, or, even better, to allow them to trade with us. Yet the EU proposes stick and stick measures. Massive tariffs and yards of red tape prevent the Third World from selling us many of their products and retard their industrial growth, yet aid will now be withheld if impoverished Governments cannot finance adequate border controls.
For Mr McDowell, leading member of a party that supports free trade and liberal economics, to support these measures is stunningly hypocritical. His party also supports freedom.
What sort of freedom will the people of the Third World have if their every movement must be scrutinised by their governments to prevent them leaving their countries? And what of the money that will have to be allocated to border controls, rather than, for example, education, health, transport?
History books say the EU was created to save democracy and individual freedoms from totalitarianism. . .Have I missed something? - Yours, etc.,
PAUL DALY, Woodleigh Park, Model Farm Road, Cork.