An informed immigration debate can help curb the politics of hate

IT was cold in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday. Not only was the temperature way down, but there was a biting north-east wind. That was the first thing that made the sight of three men in T-shirts and jeans unusual.

They were the only people on a busy shopping street who weren't wrapped up in coats and scarves.

Young maybe early 20s with close-cropped hair, they didn't walk through Dun Laoghaire, they marched. They were on a mission. Up Marine Road they came from the sea, turning into Georges Street. Down one side, perhaps 100 yards, then back the other. Crossing the street to go into the shopping centre, always packed on a Saturday, they walked the length of the ground floor, then took the escalator up and walked past each of the shops on each level, before finally disappearing into the car park.

As far as anyone could tell, they didn't speak to anyone, or even to each other. They just wanted to be seen. Or rather, they wanted their T-shirts to be seen. White, clean T-shirts, tight-fitting, each one had a large swastika on the front, and the words "white power" on the back. Under the larger slogan was written "Give Ireland back to the Irish."

I didn't see them myself, but I've spoken to a couple of people who did. It was purposeful, determined, and focused. Who were they? Were they Irish themselves, or visitors, come to spread a message in the hope of finding fertile ground? Are they part of something, or the beginning of something? For a long time now, the entire issue of immigration into Ireland has been surrounded by myth and legend.

There are people who believe that every immigrant who lands in Ireland, whatever their status, is provided with a house, a car and a mobile phone. There are people who believe that the country is on the verge of being overrun with immigrants of all kinds and colours. There have been isolated incidents of racial violence, and perhaps more commonly there has been a good deal of ignorance and abuse. It's nothing to be proud of.

But if we are at the edge of something deeper than that, something organised and determined, we should be afraid. The politics of hate is the most powerful politics of all, and if there is some force out there prepared to tap into the prejudice we already know is there, they will find it easy enough to get started.

Part of the reason for that is because there is a significant protest vote out there already.

If you look at the breakdown of all recent opinion polls, it's easy to see that there is a substantial cluster of young working class urban male voters who are looking for an anti-establishment protest-type organisation to support.

At the moment, they tend to admire Sinn Féin and the growth of support for that party in recent times down here can be found largely in that section of our society. The absence, so far, of a charismatic public figure prepared to articulate a more virulently chauvinistic, racist or xenophobic message has limited the capacity for growth of what you might call public hate politics.

But that's not to say it isn't there, and couldn't be organised.

Another part of the reason is that we don't discuss the issue of immigration sufficiently openly; we don't do enough education; we don't celebrate our new diversity enough; we don't challenge the immigration myths enough.

Latterly, for instance, even people who know better are going around talking about the "invasion" or the "influx" that's likely to happen after May 1, when people who live in the accession countries will get the right to come and live and work here.

To listen to some of the more hysterical advocates of this argument, you'd almost be persuaded that millions, maybe tens of millions, of eastern Europeans are going to overrun Ireland, stealing our jobs, taking our homes, robbing us of our wives/husbands. They will burst up the economy with the demands they place on our social welfare system and they'll destroy our infrastructure when they become entitled to local authority houses, maternity beds, and school places for their children.

It's the greatest load of rubbish at one level. In the entire history of the world, there isn't one example of a voluntary mass movement of people from the country they were born in to an alien environment.

There is no one sitting on our border waiting for some bell to ring so they can all cross over.

But it's astonishing how many people are willing to believe it, and how many others are willing to spout the kind of rhetoric that encourages anxiety, fear, and ultimately deep prejudice.

FOR a number of years now, the State's entire national approach to immigration has been based on the concept of control. I fully accept the proposition that it is not possible in a small open economy like ours to have a policy on immigration no matter how humane and compassionate you want it to be without some element of control. But we have gone the wrong way about things in Ireland. We have never put a policy into law, nor developed a framework that would enable people to know how to come and get work in Ireland. That's why so many people come here and wrongly claim asylum as a refugee, when what they really want is to get a better start in life.

There is no legal way of applying to Ireland for a better start in life even though over the years millions of Irish people have applied in writing to Australia, Canada and the United States for a better start.

It's not a coincidence, in my view, that most people came here during the years of the Celtic Tiger. Some commentators have assumed that immigrants came to Ireland to take advantage of the Celtic Tiger but in fact there is a fair amount of evidence to show that non-national workers coming to Ireland, with an ethos that enabled them to get up a lot earlier in the morning than some of us, actually contributed more than their fair share to creating and sustaining the celtic tiger.

Now though there is a degree of economic uncertainty around. Unemployment, though still low, is on the rise. New jobs are harder to come by. Public services are being squeezed. And we can hear all the usual undercurrents it's the non-nationals who are stealing the jobs, wrecking the economy, jumping the queue for the services.

Against that background, we need to be vigilant. It is easy to grow the myths, easy to spread prejudice, easy to make people afraid and angry.

I have no doubt that people who know this area better than I do have already countered the seeds of bigotry all around them, and could give us examples of insults and attacks that have gone unreported in the media. Three young men in T-shirts may not seem like a threat to our future and our peace of mind. But it only takes a germ of hate in an insecure world.