Madam, - Sr Marguerite Kelly and Fr John McCarthy (March 30th) write movingly about the inability of undocumented Irish people in the US to assert their human rights, and even to return home for family funerals.
The situation of the undocumented Irish is replicated even more destructively in the experience of many asylum-seekers in Ireland.
Among numerous similar cases, I know personally an asylum-seeker from Kosovo who spent six years in Ireland hoping to remain here. The death of his father recently impelled him to return home, ending thereby his hopes of a more secure and peaceful life in our country.
A second relevant case concerns an Algerian asylum-seeker who has also been here for six years. If the order for his deportation is executed, he faces very real danger in a country whose record in human rights has been widely deplored.
Clearly the history of each asylum-seeker is subject to many variables. But if the Irish Government is to make a credible case in Washington for long-term undocumented Irish people, then those who have spent a substantial period of time in our own country should be accorded the same compassion as we ask for our fellow-citizens in the US. - Yours, etc,
VALERIE HUGHES, Cabra, Dublin 7.