Madam, - As a German studying in Ireland, I read Ruadhán MacCormaic's article "Time to ask tough questions" (The Irish Times, January 26th) with great interest.
It seems to me that Ireland should indeed take the German example into account when thinking about its immigration policy; the dreadful mistakes made in Germany should not be repeated over here.
The importance of education and language skills cannot be over-estimated in this case: an insufficient command of the spoken language leads to high drop-out rates at school which in turn result in unemployment, poverty and a hopeless future. That is what ultimately makes young people (be it foreigners or natives) commit crimes like those that have recently caused an outcry in Germany - and such unfortunate events inevitably strengthen support for right-wing groups and shed a bad light on all immigrants, fostering prejudices and racism alike.
To tackle this vicious circle, an honest and broad debate about immigrants' education is needed. Ireland cannot start soon enough with taking measures in that direction if it wants to avoid the problems that Germany, France and Great Britain have to deal with. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL SCHROLL,
Trinity Hall,
Dartry Road,
Dublin 6.