Sir, – I fully support Sr Stanislaus Kennedy's plea ("Taoiseach must step up on refugee issue", October 25th) that our Government facilitate, as a matter of urgency, the adoption of some 200 unaccompanied migrant children.
Her arguments are persuasive. There is a huge fund of goodwill in our country and we have the organisational expertise to make the right child-friendly arrangements.
What must not be done, however, is to place these children in long-term hostel accommodation. If that were done, we would be well on the way to repeating the extremely degrading treatment experienced by previous refugees. Caring appropriately for these children now and in the future would go some way to repairing that very recent disgrace.
If our Government continues to promise humanitarian initiatives while massively failing to implement them, it should at least spare us its current hollow rhetoric.
– Yours, etc,
JOHN FEIGHERY SVD
North Circular Road,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – It is heartening to see prominent Labour politicians calling for the Minister for Justice to admit refugee children from the Calais camp (Letters, October 27th).
Is this the same Labour Party that helped ensure the International Protection Act 2015 was guillotined through the Oireachtas despite the concerns of the Justice Committee and the Department of Justice’s own working group on the protection process.
The Council of State was convened by President Michael D Higgins to consider the constitutionality of aspects of this legislation.
The 2015 Act marks a regressive step from the groundbreaking Refugee Act 1996 introduced by a Labour minister for justice.
The new law makes family reunification, particularly for unaccompanied children, more difficult.
It is a pity that Labour has discovered a conscience on this issue from the comfort of the Opposition benches.
– Yours, etc,
BRIAN DINEEN
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.