Sir, – In his victory speech after his win in the New York mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani said: “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”
He might have added that a very, very high proportion of those immigrants came from Ireland. They came to flee famine, they came to flee oppression because of their revolutionary activities, and they came, yes, to improve their economic situation. In other words, many were economic migrants. When in New York they contributed greatly to the political, commercial and administrative life of the city.
Then, earlier this week we had the Department of Finance Future Forty report which, according to your own editorial on Nov 4th, made the point that “… immigrant labour will continue to be needed in the workforce.”
In light of the above it is disappointing indeed to hear the leader of Fine Gael, the party of Garret FitzGerald and Declan Costello, claiming, on the basis of spurious figures and for reasons known only to himself, that: “There are too many people who come to this country and who are told they do not have a right to be here and it is taking too long for them to be removed.”
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The tone was oppressive and the claim was incorrect. The fact of the matter is that we have rules about immigration in this country and, crucially, these rules are being followed, even if tardily. Tánaiste Simon Harris would need to cop himself on. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA,
Maynooth
Co Kildare
