Immigration - it’s more like an invasion

IN A report in the Irish Examiner of July 8 there was a reference to our “severe” immigration policy? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sr Stanislaus Kennedy of the Immigrant Council of Ireland admits that the rate of immigration into Ireland is very high by EU standards; only Luxembourg has a higher rate.

For example, 47,000 work permits were issued last year.

The US allows in 700,000 legal migrants annually. If they were to have the Irish rate of immigration it is calculated that they would have to let in more than three million people.

Dealing specifically with asylum, your report said that last year we gave only 350 people asylum out of 9,310 cases decided.

Do you think we deported the other almost 9,000? We deported only 590; 431 of these were to Eastern Europe; 168 to the then accession countries, now part of the EU and no longer, essentially, amenable to deportation. Interestingly, only 22 people were deported to Nigeria, though they provide 40% of our asylum applications.

“Severe?” In the case of asylum “a quisling facilitation of invasion” would be a better description.

Aine Ní Chonaill,

PRO,

Immigration Control Platform,

PO Box 6469,

Dublin 2.