Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Night after night on our television screens we see the plight of wretched people running from their respective war-torn countries, but I am absolutely shocked at the level of racist comment that I am beginning to hear around the country. Indeed, yesterday a man stood outside the gates of Leinster House with a sign saying "No more refugees." Many of us will have visited New York at some stage in our lives and seen Ellis Island. I wonder how we would have felt back in the 1800s if there was somebody standing on Ellis Island with a sign saying "Go away."