I recall an article on illegal immigration in The Times titled Crisis? What crisis? It was some two years ago, during a temporary lull in the arrival of boat people from Libya. But the surge soon started again. With last weekend's arrival of about 260 in a single boat, following that of some 300 in two boats in previous weeks, I believe only the most headstrong of optimists would refuse to admit that the influx has reached crisis proportions.

In my view the debate on racism confused the issue by reducing it to skin colour which, in the ultimate analysis, is the least important facet of the problem. There are more serious aspects. The first is the gap - probably unbridgeable - in culture between the Maltese population and our uninvited guests. We belong to different ways of life and in many cases different religions. Admittedly, religion is not as important as it used to be in Malta, but it has deeper repercussions on behaviour, for example, the place of women in society and attitudes to work, education and health. We also have different standards.

Can't the new arrivals be integrated? In the past Malta has integrated small groups of foreigners. This leads to the other important aspect, that of numbers. The inflow of illegal immigrants has represented a large and increasing proportion of the Maltese population and - far more seriously - shows no sign of abating. Nobody knows how many are waiting on the Libyan coast, ready to set sail for the shores of southern Europe. It doesn't really matter because we know that if and when they have all been transferred to Europe they will be followed by countless millions of others. Even if Malta receives only a small fraction of them, the numbers in absolute terms will be huge for a small over-populated island like ours. This is where the government should do some hard thinking: how many illegal immigrants can Malta afford to take?

The third important aspect is that it has laid bare Malta's vulnerability to the entry of undesired aliens. Anyone with a boat can enter our territorial waters without as much as "if you please". In many cases even our bays and beaches have been shown to be defenceless. Our Armed Forces have been reduced to caring for illegal immigrants. The latest landings at Marsaxlokk show that even our police force is being stretched to the limit. Incidents are becoming frequent. Would our police and armed forces be able to maintain security locally if the worse comes to the worst?

In my view the government thinks it has solved the problem by not speaking about it, just as some people insist they are in good health because they never go to see a doctor.

But it is high time both the government and opposition realised that they are failing to reflect - let alone allay - the very serious concerns of the people. We don't expect them to come up with a ready-made solution. But at least let's talk about the problem.