Migrant crisis: Ireland’s painful numbers game

The Government did the right thing when it agreed to take in 25 people from the rescue vessel stranded off the Maltese coast.

Reaching for a number — in this case, the number of people who can be taken from one boat and offered refuge in a safe but relatively small country — involves painful calculations in which our human instincts for compassion are pitched against political, economic and cultural realities.

Should it be 25 or 75 for Ireland? What’s wrong with 100?

Looked at in the overall EU context — something a handful of EU governments are for entirely comprehensible reasons now refusing to do — 25 appears to be about right for a country of our size.

But this is just one boat on one day.

As the Italians and Greeks and Maltese know, there will be another one tomorrow, and the day after that, in a crisis to which there appears to be no solution.

Mr Varadkar, setting off for today’s Brussels summit, insists EU “border security” needs to be strengthened.

How? Who will see that it’s done?

We will not insult him by suggesting he is unfamiliar with the geography of the EU’s southern coastal “border”, which is as porous as a lace curtain.

As the EU heads of government meet in Brussels today, we can expect from some of them only rose-tinted waffle while yet another stranded boat carrying refugees, economic migrants and very possibly — let’s not sugar this pill — people who mean our countries nothing but harm sends out an SOS.