Madam, - Mike Jennings of Siptu (February 24th) argues that "the way to combat distrust and anti-migrant sentiment is not by pointlessly trying to tell workers to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes and pretend that displacement is not happening".
The problem with this approach is that one moves from individual perceptions to making the sweeping macro-economic statement that displacement of Irish workers by migrants is a national problem. The evidence adduced to back up this assertion is usually based either on "anecdotal evidence" or, as Mike Jennings now presents it, on the "evidence of their own [ Irish workers'] eyes".
A more serious flaw in his argument is the way he presents facts that are related in time and space as cause and effect: he is using the oldest logical fallacy in the book, that of "post hoc, propter hoc". For example, he links the economic facts that "19,900 Irish workers lost their jobs in manufacturing while in the same period the numbers of migrant workers employed in the same sector rose by 7,200". Manufacturing jobs are being lost to low-wage countries rather than to EU citizens displacing Irish workers from their jobs. A recent case is the move of the Japanese NEC operation from Ireland to Singapore, where the company claims that labour costs are one third of Irish levels. Mr Jennings goes on to suggest that migrant workers are displacing Irish workers in the hotels and catering sector, again by inferring a causal link between the loss of 800 Irish jobs and the employment of 3,600 "foreigners".
There is no doubt that unions such as Siptu are highlighting the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers and are trying to organise and integrate them into the Irish workforce. But to move from this work of solidarity into trying to argue, on the basis of anecdotal and perceptual evidence, that a widespread macroeconomic phenomenon of displacement is occurring is not valid.
I believe that such woolly and fallacious reasoning is not the way to combat distrust and anti-migrant sentiment. On the contrary, reiterating invalid arguments based on flimsy "evidence" only aggravates anti-migrant prejudice. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER, Pennock Hill, Swords, Co Dublin.