Sir, - We clap ourselves on the backs when we raise millions for the Third World, but it's just a sop to our collective conscience as can be readily seen when we are faced with a few thousand people looking for a better place to live. Shame on us. We have exported millions of emigrants and even now have huge numbers working illegally in the US backed by lobbies to make them legal.
Then we pretend it's a question of whether or not refugees are political, and therefore "justified" in coming here. Political or economic, it is high time we redressed the balance we owe the world. Economic refugees will probably enrich the nation in time.
Now Minister O'Donohue is going to solve the problem by processing the backlog of asylum applications on a fast track. And The Irish Times at least knows what that means. It means we will be deporting thousands by next summer. It's already decided: guilty until proven innocent!.
Hasn't the Minister considered our standard response to backlogs. We put thousands of untrained drivers on the roads (with who knows what consequences) because we couldn't process them. We forgave the tax-dodgers debts, which vastly exceed the cost of asylum seekers, because we couldn't deal with the backlog. Just for once, could he not employ this technique in a charitable way and declare an amnesty for refugees, welcome them all to our Ireland of the Welcomes and give them the work-permits they need to avoid being a burden on the fat cat (I mean the Celtic Tiger)?
Undoubtedly there is a limit on how many we can welcome. But we haven't come near it yet. And if we do and must close the door, let's do it with an empty queue and give future applicants the right to work while they wait, so that our society is not automatically prejudiced against them for "sponging". - Yours, etc.,
From Don McBrien
Cambridge Terrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.