Migration policies should be managed with facts not emotions

Sir, - Yet another local community is protesting deportation orders against their migrant neighbours (“South Dublin community urges quashing of deportation order against family“, News, February 13^th).

This expression of solidarity shows that social cohesion is possible and thriving with the presence of migrants despite Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan trying to convince us otherwise (“High asylum seeker numbers are a threat to ‘social cohesion‘, says Jim O’Callaghan”, Politics, December 16^th, 2025).

Now we learn that a confidential Government paper warned that Ireland needed migration to sustain its workforce and public services (“Ireland needs migration to sustain workforce - confidential Government paper“, February 12^th, 2026). Another report found that misperception is strongly associated with negative attitudes to immigration (“Most people in Ireland overestimate the scale of immigration, study finds“, News, January 15^th).

Can we start planning and managing migration based on facts and the needs of our communities and economies, and not inflated emotions by misrepresentation and political ambitions? - Yours, etc,