Urging a big attendance at Tuesday's session in the West County Hotel, Aine Ni Chonaill says Ennis is also the capital of one of the counties affected by EU and other immigration. According to the group, push and pull factors are increasingly impelling European Union citizens to settle here. And they quote Professor Piaras MacEinri of the newly founded Irish Centre for Migration Studies as pointing out that in certain parts of rural Ireland, up to ten per cent and more of the population may consist of British and Continental European immigrants. In the view of Immigration Control Platform organisers, the fact that every EU citizen has an almost unqualified right to live in Ireland has not really impinged on Irish consciousness and they quote Professor MacEinri again as predicting that Ireland may yet become a nation of immigrants. On the question of immigration from outside Europe, they say that anyone who has observed the way the asylum process has been used as an immigration stratagem throughout the Continent and has looked at the racial tensions which large scale non-European immigration has brought to other European countries could not but shudder at the thought of Ireland following suit.
Democracy dictates the necessity for that voice to be heard.