Fear and racial tensions may determine Nice vote, says Lynch

FEARS about immigrants and racial tensions will be a potent but unspoken factor in the upcoming EU Nice Treaty vote, a Labour TD warned today.

Kathleen Lynch said that the Government and other proponents of a Yes vote in the planned re-run of the referendum are ignoring the racial tensions which arise from people's fears about an influx of asylum seekers and refugees. She said these issues must be addressed upfront by Government before people can have the confidence to endorse Nice.

Ms Lynch said she does not believe Irish people are especially racist but she argued that their fears in recent years have been fed by a feeling that the authorities are not properly in control of the immigration issue. The Cork North Central TD said there was an unfounded fear that EU enlargement would mean a huge increase in immigrants from the former East Bloc states.

She said the authorities urgently needed to end the waiting time for processing asylum applications and improving resources in the poorer communities asked to receive migrants. There were still delays of up to two years and this was unfair to communities and the asylum seekers themselves.

“You cannot keep putting more asylum seekers into an already poorly resourced community which has only one post office and just one community health board worker,” she said.

In an interview in today's Irish Examiner, Ms Lynch argued that people need to be reassured that Ireland will not be flooded by immigrants because people in the former East Bloc want to see their own countries develop. “The biggest problem is that the issue is not being properly addressed and unless it is people will be afraid to vote for Nice,” she said.