Asylum seekers

Before condemning Australia’s hard-line response to asylum seekers we should consider our own position on the growing problem.

Australia will refuse entry to asylum seekers who arrive by boat and send them to Papua New Guinea. In Ireland, we subject them to an almost interminable vetting process and confine them in pretty basic circumstances, refuse them the right to work and give them minimal support.

Surely a country like ours — or Australia — should have more empathy with those trying to build a better life in a new country.