Sir, - There seems a shameful irony in the fact that on the same day (April 15th) that The Irish Times reported details of new measures planned by the Minister for Justice to "cut immigration" (yet again mischievously blurring the distinction between asylum-seeking and immigration) the Evening Herald reported a savage, racist attack on a 17-year-old asylum-seeking African youth in the centre of Dublin. And it seems that this is only one of a number of racist attacks on African asylum-seekers which occurred in the week before Easter, one of them on a pregnant woman.
One wonders if the Minister himself is aware of the irony and if there is any chance that it might inspire him and his Department to apply the same energy and enthusiasm that they are currently applying to the immigration question to tackling these ugly and alarming demonstrations of racism on our streets. If the Government continues to show the appalling lack of leadership in this area that it has up to now, the comparatively small number of refugees who are allowed to seek asylum in Ireland will soon be as much at risk here as they were in the very situations which led them to flee their homelands in the first place. - Yours, etc.,
Ann Moroney
Philipsburgh Avenue, Marino, Dublin 3.