AN Irish government minister has blasted the New York Times over an article that criticises J-1 students in the wake of the Berkeley tragedy.
The Republic’s Equality Minister Aodhan Ó Riordain said the article was a “disgrace” after it claimed that popular visa programme used by thousands of young people annually to access work in the US had become an “embarrassment” because of the drunken antics of Irish students.
Under a headline that said the death of six students in California when an apartment balcony collapsed had “cast [a] pall on [the] program”.
“The work-visa program that allowed for the exchanges has in recent years become not just a source of aspiration, but also a source of embarrassment for Ireland, marked by a series of high-profile episodes involving drunken partying and the wrecking of apartments in places like San Francisco and Santa Barbara,” the paper said.
However, Mr O’Riordain, a Dublin TD, tweeted that the paper’s slant on the “tragedy” had been a disgrace, and he later demanded an apology.
The article received widespread criticism on Twitter, with one tweeter saying that the writer and editor “should be ashamed” while others called the story “shameful”, “inappropriate”, “insensitive tripe” and suggested that the “NYT deserves the full wrath of the Irish diaspora”.
