The traffickers’ chain of misery must be broken and the coff in containers stopped

THE desperate last message from inside the sealed container – ‘I’m dying because I cannot breathe’ – brings home the full horror of what happened to the 39 migrants found dead last week.

The facts of what happened have yet to be fully revealed but with so many links to Ireland, we feel all the more profoundly the sickening end to the lives of these hopeful young people.

We extend our sincere condolences to the bereaved. We mourn a tragedy for Vietnam.

But what do we do then? Compassion without effect is useless. What is the most practical way of preventing these dreadful deaths from happening?

Whatever we may think of immigration, it is hard not to sympathise with the immigrants themselves. It is brave and very difficult to uproot yourself from your home country and travel, in perilous conditions, thousands of miles to an unknown land in the hope of bettering yourself. As a nation with a history of emigration, we know that too well.

These events are driven by a ‘Golden Dream’ of life in Europe and especially Britain, promoted by the wicked exploiters whose trade is the smuggling of their fellow humans. They are also fuelled by poor conditions in the ill-governed and often corrupt places from which they come.

But much of what these migrants believe about their hoped-for lives in Europe is false. Those who actually manage to arrive usually find themselves trapped in a world of exploitation and fear, as they struggle to pay their debts to the extortioners who smuggled them in the first place.

It is easy to demonise economic migrants, and we have recently seen far too many people in our own country, renowned for the warmth of its welcome, seek to exploit division and hatred.

Tackling the growing and calculatedly fomented resistance to the resettlement of migrants is for another day. For now, we must look to the lessons we can learn from this unspeakable tragedy.

It clearly shows that greater cooperation between European nations and Britain is needed, both now and post-Brexit. Border checks that concentrate on the people traffickers are patently insufficient in some quieter ports. Also, a fair and efficiently run immigration system is fundamental to dissuading those who pay fortunes and risk their lives from ever embarking on such a course. The Irish system is too lengthy and pitted with delays and inconsistencies.

Illegal immigration, as we see, is not just unfair to those already here, and to those who abide by the rules and seek to come here legally. It is deeply dangerous for the immigrants themselves.

CUT SALARIES BUT KEEP OUR ART

LOUIS le Brocquy was one of the finest artists this country produced, a stylistic trailblazer who put Ireland on the global map. Now, despite promises it never would do so, RTÉ is selling off two of his works, for very little reward on its bottom line.

Louis le Brocquy’s art is part of our patrimony. Selling it might make RTÉ look serious about its deficit but slashing a few superstar salaries would be much more effective.