Sir, - During her term of office as President, Mary Robinson started a tradition of placing a light in a window of Aras an Uachtarain to symbolise a welcome to Irish emigrants coming home to be with their families and friends. After a week in which four asylum-seekers were detained in Mountjoy Prison pending their deportation from this country, would it not be a more appropriate symbol if President McAleese extinguished all lights in Aras an Uachtarain and left the building in bleak, un-welcoming darkness? To our shame, it seems that when it comes to asylum-seekers in Ireland there is no room at the inn. - Yours, etc., Pat Guerin,
Anti-Racism Campaign, Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2.