Clodagh Finn: We need to think of refugees as net contributors, not as a burden

When you hear the word 'refugee'. do you want to push the words 'Ireland first' up a flagpole, asks Clodagh Finn

A 1943 school photo of Ronald Friend who was mixed in with local children at a school in the south of France. Mary Elmes extricated Ronald and his brother from a detention camp in 1942. Ronald is in the middle row, third from left. Michael, his brother, is in top row third from left with hand on his shoulder. 

The message of the week goes to a friend in the US who sent this: “Just met a lady at nearby park today with greyhound rescued from Limerick that arrived via Heathrow and Seattle, and now in Portland [Oregon]. Glad to see not all refugee activities at a halt though it doesn’t seem our State Department has changed since WW2.”

Is there a more apt observation of our back-to-front world, in which a person will go through hoops to rescue a dog, while governments drag their feet to take in desperate people fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan?