Sir, - "But if you look in their heads, from the youngest up, you'll see £500 or £600 worth of teeth all in gold." Reading this comment quoted in your report on refugees in Ireland (May 26th), who could fail to think of pre-Holocaust anti-Semitic propaganda?
It has long been my thought that the reason Ireland had no glaring problem with racism was because there was little opportunity for a problem to arise. The current influx of refugees is our first real multi-cultural experience. Our country is still fighting for unification, for its own national identity. Will the nationalism of a United Ireland mutate into a National Front?
There should be openness in admitting, first and foremost, that there is a genuine difficulty in dealing with the unregulated numbers of refugees coming to Ireland. Political correctness should be a facilitator, not a censor. There are those who need asylum. There are also those who abuse the system. If those who have legislative power seem to ignore the situation, the feeling at ground level could well rise to militant racism.
We have seen vigilantism in response to the perceived government inactivity on the drugs issue. We must avoid such a response to refugees. We must also avoid seeing a right-wing swing during the election as the easy answer to system abuse. Above-ground fascism is as reprehensible as the under-ground variety. - Yours, etc.,
Christchurch Place,
Dublin 8.