JIM BLAKE,
Madam, - It is just 12 months ago since we in Cork, and of course in Ireland generally, were subjected to the rantings of wannabe TDs, seeking election and using attacks on immigrants and asylum seekers as props for their platforms. Noel O'Flynn sang about "spongers" and "freeloaders" and got himself elected. This year he is saying that it is unscrupulous employers who are importing immigrants who are the problem.
He says, in good old tradition, that his concern is for the Irish and he is not really anti-foreigner. His concern is about unemployment, he says.
I have to tell Mr O'Flynn, as a shop steward and section chairperson in my own workplace, that we have all benefited enormously from the contribution made by foreign workers and that we as a union stepped in to ensure that they were spoken to at their orientation and persuaded to join SIPTU.
We will be supporting them in getting renewal of their contracts. They are contributing greatly to the Irish economy and to international solidarity between workers. Most trade unionists are far-sighted and intelligent, unlike the prophets of doom who would have us become xenophobes.
If Mr O'Flynn is concerned about us in the forefront of the working-class movement, then he should join with SIPTU and the ICTU in ensuring that all foreign workers are unionised. Will he do that?
A study done in Boston's North East University shows how immigrants were a huge contributory factory in the economic boom of the United States in the years 1990 to 2001. The study estimated that more than 13.5 million people emigrated into the US between 1990 and 2001, arriving in even greater numbers than in the three decades of the "Great Wave" before the first World War. The 13.5 million accounted for 40 per cent of America's population growth in the period.
Because of America's ageing population the immigrants accounted for a more than proportionate 50 per cent of the growth in the labour market. They stepped in to fill the gap left by the 4.5 million decline in the number of workers aged between 25 and 34. Further, the study estimates that 9 million of the 13.5 million arrivals were undocumented workers, living in the US illegally but contributing to the economy by occupying the low-skilled and low-paid jobs.
Ireland's parallel boom came mainly on the back of all this growth in the US.
The study concludes, about the US: "Even if we are going to achieve the modest rate of growth forecast for the next 10 years we are going to have to see a substantial level of immigration".
Does anyone believe this evidence for the benefits of immigration will keep Noel O'Flynn quiet? - Yours, etc.,
JIM BLAKE,
Grosvenor Mews,
Douglas West,
Cork.