Sir, – Michael McDowell writes that we need to tackle the “pull factors” that attract asylum applicants to this country without specifying what they are (“Ireland must tackle the ‘pull factors’ that attract asylum applicants”, Opinion, September 18th).
He describes how other EU countries are responding to the crisis and their mixed results - the metric being a reduction in the numbers seeking asylum.
Instead of focusing on the “pull factors”, however, we would be better off looking at the “push factors” and migration as a whole.
For more than 200 years the Global South has been exploited to feed consumption and the accumulation of wealth in the richer countries of the north. Through colonialism it provided forced labour with social consequences felt to this day. In addition these countries were robbed of precious resources with scant regard for the population. Any resistance was met with brutal repression and in some cases genocide.
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In recent decades that has continued, but the theft has been legalised through unbalanced trade agreements, often signed by local authoritarian governments, propped up by the West.
In the meantime, their ecosystems have been destroyed, feeding the rampant consumerism of the West. The acceleration of climate change and biodiversity loss in recent years mean that in addition to poverty driven by economic exploitation, many in the Global South also face the worst impacts of more volatile weather and excess pollution.
It is time to recognise economic, climate and environmental refugees as legitimate and deserving of our protection.
If we are determined to stop the arrival of migrants to the borders of Europe then we need to be honest with ourselves.
As long as we continue to push an economic model that craves growth for growth’s sake, and destroys ecosystems, then we will drive people from their homes in the Global South.
Pull factors are irrelevant. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.