Over the past fifteen years those in power made a lot of promises. They promised a country in which everybody would benefit from the economy, one in which poverty and other problems would be left behind. As usual they lied.
Low pay, homelessness, long hospital waiting lists, under funded schools, drug abuse and the high cost of housing are just some the difficulties that ordinary people across the country still have to deal with. The illusion of the Celtic Tiger has disappeared and left in its place a lot of angry people. And we are right to be angry.
Over the past fifteen years a certain section of society made a lot of money off our work. Businessmen, Bankers, Landowners and Politicians all grew very rich by screwing the rest of us. But they can’t admit this, they can’t accept responsibility for the society that they shaped and the problems they caused.
Instead, helped by their rich newspaper owning friends, they try and find someone else to blame. Asylum Seekers are among the most vulnerable sectors in society. They are people fleeing their homeland because of violence or persecution and hope to find shelter in Ireland. Refugees from war-torn countries like Afghanistan face incredibly dangerous and difficult conditions in their home countries – at the time of the Afghani’s protest more than 50 people were being violently killed there every day. Last year in Ireland only 2,541 people applied for asylum but if you were to depend on the mainstream media you would get a very different picture.
They imply that we are being swamped by an army of asylum seekers here to sponge off the state. They help spread myths that asylum seekers get free cars and mobile phones, that they get houses ahead of Irish people and that they clog up the medical system. These myths are untrue. Like most other people in society Asylum Seekers are screwed by the government but because they are so vulnerable and isolated they often get treated even worse.
This article is from The Libertarian. Issue 2 (August 2006), a newsletter for the Liberties and Portobello produced by the Workers Solidarity Movement
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