It’s an election year, so Helen gets tough on immigration

I HEARD Justice Minister Helen McEntee on the radio announcing she will add more countries to our ‘safe’ list of non-EU countries, making their citizens less likely to get asylum here. She was quick to point out that the majority of people who come here from safe countries are refused asylum.

I was shocked to hear this. We all know that anyone, a month ago, who had said a lot of asylum claims were bogus would have had Ms McEntee branding them ‘dangerous far right’. But not now. Its as if someone in Fine Gael HQ suddenly remembered this is an election year and 75% of people are concerned about immigration, so watch Helen get tough!

She channelled her inner Suella Braverman and announced she might, someday, maybe, possibly charter private planes to send all those dodgy claimants back where they came from. I was half expecting her to say she’d send them to Rwanda and let them sort it out.

So how many countries were added to the safe list in this ‘get tough’ strategy? Two – Algeria and Botswana – bringing the total on the list to a mere 10.

So why, you may ask were these countries added to the list? Has there been some massive shift in political and social structures of these countries in the past few months making them safe? No.

None. It’s just that there are a lot of people coming from there now, so it’s easier to just stick the countries on the list than process all the applications. In the same way, the last country added, Georgia, went on the safe list only when a lot of Georgians came here.

So can the Government explain why Algeria is safe, but neighbouring Morocco isn’t? Why is Botswana safe, but neighbouring Namibia isn’t?

If, next month, 5,000 young men show up from Namibia, will it suddenly be put on the safe list?

Why isn’t Canada on the list, or Uruguay, or Switzerland, or Japan? Can someone from Joe Biden’s America come here and claim asylum with a straight face because we don’t consider the US safe? Is the list solely decided by numbers arriving?

But then again, Helen McEntee needed a Garda escort to walk the streets of the capital and declare Dublin ‘safe’, so maybe she isn’t the best judge of safety.

It seems the lunatics have taken over the asylum policy! PETER COSGROVE, Wellingtonbridge, Co. Wexford

Ignoring the victims

WITH each news report of the daily Palestinian death toll from unrelenting Israeli bombardment, I feel a slightly greater desensitisation and resignation.

I’ve noticed this disturbing effect ever since I began regularly consuming news in 1988. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this nor that it’s wilfully callous.

It has long seemed to me as a news consumer that the value of a life abroad is typically perceived according to the abundance of protracted conditions under which it suffers, especially during wartime, and that this effect can be exacerbated when there’s also racial contrast. Therefore, when that life is lost, even violently, it usually receives lesser coverage.

FRANK STERLE JR, British Columbia, Canada

Cars aren’t for pleasure

AUTOMOBILE manufacturers constantly vie with each other to make their cars as luxurious as possible, isolating driver and passenger from the world outside and with more and more interior distractions. TV and media ads seem to imply that the destination isn’t the most important thing – the car and journey are.

The carnage and misery caused by private vehicle crashes will continue until society realises that the automobile should be primarily a means of travelling quickly from A to B in simple comfort.

If it’s an enjoyable and totally relaxing journey you want, there are plenty of cruise ships that are willing to oblige.

MIKE ROYCROFT, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary