Human trafficking underestimated: Another failure

In a country where only two police officers track how terrorist organisations might use our banking system — so recently dubbed the ‘Wild West’ of European finance — it cannot be surprising that the United Nations has found that human trafficking into Ireland is 50% higher than official figures suggest.

The UN believes that 200 women were trafficked into the country between 2012 and 2016 and became victims of sexual exploitation.

Another 82 souls were, to use that half-truth term that describes contemporary slavery, forced labour.

No matter how we might dress it up, our failure to offer protection to those so trafficked is a kind of disdain for the wellbeing of the most vulnerable.

It is also an unacceptable rejection of the basic human rights we demand for ourselves.

These figures are revealing, as were the two arson attacks on asylum hotels and the new court measures that, according to lawyers, will have “a chilling effect” on how asylum and immigration cases might be processed in our courts.

Our history and today’s affluence demand that we do much better on these issues.