In last week’s Metro Éireann (18–24 June 2009) your editorial and a number of articles dealt with the failure of the majority of immigrant candidates in the recent local elections. May I suggest one reason for that failure?
The majority of candidates stood either for Fianna Fáil, the Green Party or Fine Gael. The two former parties form the present government. This government is responsible for the mass deportations to Nigeria; it keeps asylum seekers in the direct provision system and denies them the right to work.
Fine Gael has similar policies. At a recent public meeting in Cork, a senior Fine Gael councillor replied, when asked to give his party’s position on asylum seekers, that the party was in favour of deportations as otherwise “Ireland would be seen as a backdoor to an easy life.”
If immigrant candidates want to be successful, they should in the first instance be campaigners on behalf of their fellow immigrants, and not representatives of the parties that are denying them basic civil rights.
Joe Moore,
Cork Anti Racism Networ
