Migrant crisis at Calais is only a short trip by boat and truck to Ireland

I think the port of Calais is 32 miles from Dover. The migrants at Calais are relentlessly testing the boundaries (literally) of the Channel Tunnel and the Port of Calais.

Remember, many of the migrants are desperate veterans of a massive camino across the Sahara, veterans of a terrible sea crossing from Libya to Italy, from Turkey to Greece.

How long will it be before migrants start spreading out along the coast of northern France and buying (or taking) boats?

If I was a migrant, I’d be talking to a fisherman in Brest right now about my passage to the UK. Cameron’s solutions are muddled and hypocritical. Ukip’s notions are hysterical.

As in the Med, the same migrants would have to be picked up from the English Channel by the Coastguard, the Royal Navy and the RNLI. If they drift west, then the Irish Navy and our helicopters will be picking up migrants off Cork, Wexford and Waterford.

If I was a migrant, I would head for the Scilly Isles, or the Channel Islands. How does a migrant on a truck axle differ from a migrant floating in the Med or in the Irish Sea?

I guess the men are young and fit, as these are the ones who could make the trip from their homelands to Calais, without children or older relatives. These are the first of the few.

The next stage of the Calais crisis will be at sea and closer to our shores than we might like to imagine.

Alex Lyons

Rathfarnham

Dublin