The terror that the Chinese migrant workers must have felt as they were surrounded by the swirling waters of Morecambe Bay is difficult to contemplate. Their tragic deaths highlight the precarious situation of migrant workers all over the world, writes Breda O'Brien.
The so-called "snakehead" gangs have been implicated in Morecambe, ruthless criminals who exploit desperate people, and force them to work for low pay and in dangerous conditions.
We are not immune from such practices in Ireland. One of the seamier aspects of Irish urban life is the way that Chinese triad gangs have moved in and started controlling brothels, often leading to violence and feuds.
Naturally, most of the hardworking Chinese community in Ireland have no connection with organised crime. Indeed, many who watched Des Bishop's Work Experience recently, where he took so-called "entry-level service industry positions", would have been forced to conclude that we have much to learn from the patient, courteous way that Chinese people working in fast-food outlets treat the boorish, drunken Irish.
It is not just the Chinese who have moved into the kind of minimum-wage jobs that Irish people used to be grateful for during the 1980s, but now will not touch with a barge-pole.
From potato-pickers to toilet attendants, meat-packers to nannies, non-nationals are everywhere. They are very vulnerable to exploitation, not least because it is the employer who is granted the work permit.
It is very difficult to change employer. As a result, such workers are very easily exploited, as they fear deportation if they annoy their employer. This system led to Mary Robinson commenting that the situation of migrant workers in Ireland is akin to "bonded servitude".
One would think that the Irish experience of emigration would have rendered us more sympathetic to immigrants. Sadly, the opposite seems to be the case. There is much grousing about the fact that Ireland is now the only country which appears to be welcoming workers from the 10 EU accession countries, as even Britain seems to be muttering nervously about restricting social welfare benefits.
The general argument seems to be along the lines of: why should we be the only eejits in the EU to welcome them with open arms? There has been very little questioning as to why the rest of the EU is so lacking in generosity. It is an odd situation, surely, that we are being asked to accept a constitution which allegedly is based on the notion of European unity, yet national interests are being favoured to the extent of refusing work rights to new EU members?
There may be a downside to Ireland's apparent generosity. Europeans, no matter how far east their origins, may be regarded as easier to integrate than other nationalities, which may mean that other groups may become expendable.
The Irish Government has stated that its immigration policy is based on labour market needs. There is little enthusiasm for the notion that human beings are more than units of labour.
Our experience of emigration may have disadvantaged us in other ways when it comes to the question of dealing with immigrants. We are not used to visualising ourselves as a place where people want to come to, not leave. We had no infrastructure in place to deal with inward migration. In fact, when it comes to housing and health, and in some cases, education, we could not even deal with returning Irish emigrants.
As Piaras Mac Einrí of University College Cork pointed out at an Immigrant Council of Ireland conference in Dublin last December, Ireland is different from other European countries when it comes to immigration. Most immigrants to northern European countries after the second World War had some kind of connection to the host country, either because they came from former colonies, or because there were long-established patterns of migration, such as the Turks into Germany. No such linkages exist in Ireland.
Mac Einrí did not mention one link, that is, missionaries, a connection which is particularly strong in some African and Asian communities.
At one stage I spent nine months living in the US and France with people from developing countries, and every single African and most of the Latin Americans knew and liked Irish missionaries. It is perhaps no coincidence that some of the staunchest advocates of rights for immigrants are members of religious orders, many of whom have spent most of their lives in developing countries..
Little did they think when they left Ireland that when they returned or retired they would have a further ministry to non-nationals in their own countries. Often the only local person capable of speaking the language of a migrant worker, say, a Brazilian in a meat factory, is a returned missionary.
Europe as a whole has a negative attitude to immigration, which is quite difficult to understand given that it will be unable to sustain itself due to falling birth rates and an imminent pensions crisis.
Perhaps it is a hangover from a colonising past, but if so, what excuse do the Irish have? We feel real sympathy at the plight of the Chinese in Morecambe Bay, but far less if non-nationals wish to move in next door.
Not to mention the fact that the very notion of "next door" has been irrevocably altered by globalisation. We might feel smug because we neither frequent brothels nor verbally abuse Chinese workers in a kebab joint.
However, I for one was jolted by a recent Cafod report called Clean Up Your Computer. It points out that our indispensable PC may have been produced in conditions just as horrendous as those suffered by the Chinese in Morecambe.
Consumers demand ever-cheaper and higher-specification laptops and PCs. Contracts are given to independent agencies, which often pay slave wages and impose tyrannical conditions on easily exploited workers in China, Thailand and Mexico, who are bullied, beaten and denied the right to unionise. The computer market-leaders have reacted quickly to Cafod's report, claiming ignorance of the conditions of workers and promising reforms.
We will have to come to terms, not just with immigrants, but with the fact that every purchase we make has implications for developing countries. A globalised world means none of us has entirely clean hands.