Madam, - It is disturbing to read (August 17th) that the Garda are considering "further mass deportations" of Roma. It is also particularly insensitive since the Roma are no strangers to mass deportations, having suffered their own holocaust in the Nazi death camps during the second World War. The apparent targets of the proposed deportations are people from EU states who have been here for more than 90 days and have no obvious means of support. This may be legal under EU law, though it appears to undermine the whole idea of EU citizenship, but to single out Roma for this treatment smacks of racial stereotyping. Such a policy, if it is to be carried out, should be directed at all EU citizens, regardless of their country of origin or ethnic background. Targeting Roma in particular, especially when linked with allegations of anti-social behaviour, amounts to criminalising a whole ethnic group. It would be similar to the targeting of the Irish community in England during the IRA campaign of the 1970s and 1980s, or the black community in Britain under the SUS laws, which contributed to the Brixton and Toxteth riots in the early 1980s. The British police learned a costly lesson about the dangers of racial stereotyping. Do we have to make the same mistakes all over again? - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL FARRELL, Blackrock, Co Dublin.