Sir, - At last the Irish Government has been so moved by the crisis in the Balkans that it has decided to take in 1,000 refugees from the region, starting with Monday's airlift of 150 Kosovans. This announcement was made only after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, criticised the role of the international community in its responsibilities towards refugees.
The fate of these and countless other refugees still in the Balkans remains uncertain. But we can be confident of this: that those unfortunate enough to be airlifted to the "Ireland of the Welcomes" will be subsumed into the sorry history of this nation's record of dealing with asylum-seekers.
If we believe certain sections of the media, we are being inundated by wave after wave of asylum-seekers. Political and economic refugees converge at our sea and airports on a daily basis, flooding the country with the base rejects of the world, whose sole intention is to become parasitic burdens on the State. Such images, of course, serve only to fuel the inherent ignorance of our xenophobic, mono-religious, mono-cultural island race. The truth is that those seeking asylum in this country at present amount to only 0.02 per cent of the indigenous population, a figure that could hardly be described in the terms promulgated by sections of the Irish media.
It is said that for evil to flourish it takes only for good men to do nothing. And yet the Minister for Justice, under his proposed Immigration Bill, has aligned himself with the evil-doers. Instead of creating new opportunity and offering hope to those who have sought refuge in this country because of war, famine and torture, he has invented new ways to deport more than the 90 per cent of asylum-seekers he already deports.
Though possibly a futile exercise, it may be worthwhile to remind the Minister and his like-minded counterparts in the media of a simple equation. The people whose plight so appalled us when images of war in Bosnia, famine in Somalia and genocide in Rwanda flashed across our television screens are the same people we now see trying to build lives for themselves in the town and cities of this country, and whose fate lies solely in the hands of the Minister.
In a time of unparalleled growth and prosperity, of Budget surpluses and high employment in the land of the Celtic Tiger - shame on us. - Yours, etc., J. Johnson,
Whitecliff, Rathfarmham, Dublin 14.