Madam, - At the core of the asylum-seeker controversy there is a rather nasty "elephant in the cathedral", to which it is time we granted some kind of status in the popular debate. This elephant is none other than the vast discrepancy in incomes between those inside the buttressed walls of the developed world and those on the outside.
Ireland enjoys a per capita GNP of about $35,000, which contrasts with a world per capita GDP of less than $9,000. These rather vague-sounding statistics translate into something very real: clean water, warm well-constructed housing, enough food to eat, medication, well-tailored clothes and education for all of "us" and not for "them".
With very few exceptions, we Irish enjoy a standard of living in excess of the wildest dreams of the vast majority of Earth's inhabitants. It is this discrepancy that opens the portcullis to acts of desperation - whether theatrical or genuine - such as the recent events in St Patrick's.
Nor can random bleedings of the heart stop the flow of blood that this discrepancy implies. Poverty in the developing world is a structural problem, and it will not go away just because we grant asylum to a handful of the lucky ones, or because some super-cool rockers stage a feel-good mega-concert.
The only effective solution to poverty is the creation of market economies in which people can themselves generate the wealth and prosperity needed to stamp out the natural misery of an intrinsically hostile world.
Developed countries such as Ireland can facilitate this transition from poor dependency to rich self-reliance, not through charity and asylum on the drip, but through trade liberalisation and the encouragement of political and social infrastructures which allow markets to function in the world's poorest countries. For example, getting rid of the Common Agricultural Policy subsidies, which represent an unfair competitive advantage to inefficient European farmers over efficient Third World producers, could on its own do more to help alleviate poverty than the entire global refugee system put together.
In the context of our church-going hunger-strikers, this philosophy might be described as "God helping those who help themselves." - Yours, etc,
GRAHAM STULL,
Mourne Abbey,
Dublin 14.
Madam, - I have just listened (I am partially blind) to an article entitled, "Living Ghosts" in the English international Catholic weekly, The Tablet. The article was written by a priest from the Notre Dame Refugee de France Centre in London and a colleague.
It gives a horrendous account of the situation of tens of thousands of refugees in England who have no legal rights. They are totally destitute apart from the help given by members of voluntary bodies, including my own institute.
The writers point out that, while the situation may be "legal", it is totally wrong morally. They remind us that the plight of these people is entirely at variance with Catholic social teaching, repeatedly stressed by Pope John Paul II - the principle of solidarity with suffering humanity, whatever the colour, race or creed, and the principle of community responsibility in such a situation.
What greatly concerns me now is that Ireland shows every sign of taking the same road. Gone are the days when our nation saw Christ "in face of friend and stranger." Competitiveness has replaced caritas as a value in our society and we are immeasurably diminished by the exchange. - Yours, etc,
Sister ANNA MARIA
REYNOLDS CP,
Cross and Passion Convent,
Griffith Avenue,
Marino,
Dublin 9.