Sir, - You have published a lot of correspondence on the above subject, most of it not at all about genuine asylum seekers, who constitute a very small proportion of our immigrants and are no real problem.
Your correspondents, understandably, make points one would expect from the average Irish Times reader, usually a liberal Christian living in a leafy suburb far removed from the areas affected by bulk immigration. Let me make two points from experience that may prompt more thought.
Firstly, many of your correspondents recommend an open door to all immigrants on the grounds that the Irish were well treated when we emigrated. Rubbish. We were accepted very reluctantly because we filled a need for labour that existed at that time and place. I am old enough to remember the notices: "No Irish or coloured need apply". Paddy was a figure of fun in the streets of Birmingham and London and I have read that it was worse in America. If we were successful it was despite, not because of, our treatment.
Secondly, let us realise that within the next few years Romania and other east-European countries will become EU members and their economic refugees will be able to flock here as of right. As a person who lived in a London suburb that was overrun by one of the first wave of former "Empire" immigrants in the early 1950s, let me tell you "You ain't seen nothin' yet"! I'm not worried, I was in it and through it, but I wonder about some of your correspondents. - Yours, etc.,
W. Murphy, Malahide, Co Dublin.