Foreign students not so good for economy

IT was very disappointing to see Seán Kelly MEP (Letters, October 18) getting sucked into the myth about the benefit of large numbers of foreign students here.

When are Irish politicians going to learn to take the longer view? Is that not the very lesson recent events are supposed to have taught us.

Does Mr Kelly not realise the figures constantly trotted out by the Government about the money “brought into the country” by foreign students are nonsense. They get that money, in probably a majority of cases, by taking jobs in this economy which young Irish people could do with. They must have money in the bank to get in, but this is borrowed from relatives and returned when their visa is secured.