Truh be told no matter where the Chinese go in the world money follows. Look at Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines for example. Most of the money is held by Chinese. As a group they are incredible with money. Three of the four Filipino Billionaires are Filipino-Chinese. We need to encourage Chinese immigration as they stimulate economic activity. This isnt a theory its an economic fact.

Look at Parnell St in Dublin. In particular the end towards Summerhill. I went to school in that area in the 80’s and it was a warzone. There were few shops and the risk of getting your head kicked in when going to get the bus home from school was a daily reality. Now the area has been cleaned up and mostly by the Chinese.

The locals still cause some trouble - I was in one food place that was invaded by two skangers in tracksuits telling all and sundry to “go home” and “stop taking our jobs” and this from two spongers who managed to remain on the scratcher during the most aggressive Irish economic boom ever. It really shows the locals up when people from the opposite side of the world with little access to local credit and not able to speak the language can rejuvinate a whole area. The Irish with their hands permanently out are the leeches in this society.

I have to admit that before being educated by people that arrived here from China, Poland, The Philipines, Iran, Pakistan, France etc. All different but fundamentally all people are the same. They want to earn a bit of money, have somewhere to live and have a few friends. And a common theme I have heard form them is that few Irish are interested in learning about them as people. One Polish girl told me of getting chatted up and the guy walking away when she said she was Polish. The mind boggles.

On the other hand I went to scool for a year with people from Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and they would not address the Irish at all. I mean refused point blank to speak to the Irish. Their rudeness was legendary. They came here to get into medical school and Ireland was merely a means to an end. They could not set aside their prejudices one tiny bit and integrate in the slightest. And yet because they brought big bucks the government approved of this caper.

This country would be unbearable without immigrants. The old Catholic Taliban run old Ireland is almost dead and buried and not before time. They still have some supporters among the olders folk and the old fashoned. We still have to work on our inuslar nimbyism and encourage immigration especially from Asia. We need people here to work, innivate and compete. We are in a credit driven bubble here and we lack diversity. We need to open our minds and our palletes to new people, new languages and new food. Food is important and the Irish take any old mass produced crap and try to pass it off as food. Irish food is bland and nutritionally next to useless.

We can’t go on having a them and us attitude. Things like paying foreign nurses less and giving them bogus contracts forcing them to be students again are the worst type of racism that seems to grow here. Only last night i saw on the news that Holles st hospital were at that. In a country that is crying out for nurses we then come accross some pinheads who abuse the very people they need.

Equality only seems to work here if youre white and Irish. As my old geography teacher told us Emigration leaves beind the old and the old fashioned. This is reflected in the old fashioned wasy we view immigration and the almost totally unfounded suspicion that we view foreigners with. A country that welcomes and encourages like a gardener encourages ladybirds is the way forward. It takes cleverness and guile and I am not sure the current government is up to the task.

We are all people and the shape of your eye or the colour of your skin is no grounds to treat anyone any differently than a member of your own family.