ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY MCALEESE AT THE GALA DINNER OF THE FRANCO-IRELAND CHAMBER
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY MCALEESE AT THE GALA DINNER OF THE FRANCO-IRELAND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
Mr. President, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The renowned French playwright, Jean Anouilh, suggested in Cécile that everything in France is a pretext for a good dinner. It gives me great pleasure to follow in this honoured French tradition by availing of my brief visit to Paris to be with you here this evening at the annual Gala Dinner of the Franco-Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry and to present your Prix d’Honneur.
Let me begin by paying tribute to the Chamber which for almost 20 years has done so much to bring together business people from Ireland and France and to promote the economic relationship between our two countries. The Chamber works closely with its sister organisation in Dublin, the Ireland-France Chamber of Commerce, and I’ve no doubt that their success in facilitating the growth of our trade links owes much to the fact that the two Chambers have valuable patrons in the French Ambassador in Dublin, His Excellency Monsieur Henri Benoit de Coignac, and Ambassador Patrick O’Connor here in Paris.
I am glad to see so many key representatives of the Franco-Irish business world here tonight. I know from my visits to other countries, the vital role that organisations such as the Chamber of Commerce play in fostering those vital, often informal, contacts that can lead to successful business deals. Out of those contacts, many warm friendships have blossomed and this evening, we take the opportunity to celebrate those links of friendship as well as trade.
I am also delighted to acknowledge the presence here this evening of the directors of the Irish State Agencies - Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Bord Bia, Bord Fáilte and Bord Iascaigh Mhara – who have made such a significant contribution to the success of Irish companies in the French market.
Tonight’s Annual Gala Dinner provides an opportunity for the Chamber to look back over the year and to celebrate its achievements. One of the highlights of this evening is, of course, the award of the Chamber’s Prix d’Honneur, to the company which has made an outstanding contribution to business between Ireland and France. This year’s winner is the Dawn Queally Group, one of the most dynamic companies in the Irish food industry and an excellent example of the increasing number of Irish food companies which are achieving success in the European market. I would like to offer them my personal congratulations.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The historically strong political and cultural relationship between France and Ireland moved on to a different plane in 1973 with Ireland’s accession to the then European Economic Community. Accession to the EEC opened up huge possibilities for the diversification of our trading relations. In the twenty-seven years since then, the nature and scope of Franco-Irish relations have been truly transformed. There now exists a solid modern economic and political partnership with our European neighbours, founded on a monetary union and common institutions for the formulation of common political and economic policies. This inter-relationship is particularly evident at the moment when France holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
We also have much in common in terms of our recent economic experience. Ireland has followed France in transforming itself, in the span of a single generation, from a primarily agrarian society into a rapidly growing, dynamic economy. Stagnation has been swept aside by entrepreneurial drive, an overseas focus and movement to the high-tech sector and to the so-called “new economy“ products and services. Less measurable, but no less important, has been an accompanying explosion of confidence among our people, a sense of self-belief in our talents, in our capacity to compete and succeed among the best in the world, whatever the sphere of activity.
With an expected growth in GDP of around 10% this year, Ireland will have enjoyed, for the seventh successive year, the fastest rate of growth, not just amongst our EU partners but among the 30 countries which make up the OECD. But more than any statistics, it is the human aspect of our success which is our greatest source of pride: the fact that the horrendous waste of human potential lost in years gone by through high rates of unemployment and emigration, have been replaced by an unemployment level which now stands at 4.3% and by inward flows of migration.
Indeed, nowhere is the transformation in Ireland’s relationship with France more evident than in the pattern of migration between our two countries. If we cast an eye back over the past four hundred years we can clearly observe the transition from the migration of the ”Wild Geese” - the Irish who found refuge in France after the fall of the old Gaelic order and who served with distinction in the armies of many Kings of France, through the “Wine Geese” - those Irish persons who contributed to the development of the wine industry, particularly in the Bordeaux region, to what some are now calling the “Wired Geese” - a somewhat dubious title for those confident Irish men and women who are working in France today – by choice rather than necessity - at the forefront of the latest technologies.
The transformation of Ireland has not happened by accident. Neither has it been achieved by Ireland acting in isolation, nor indeed by any sector of the Irish community acting alone. It has been achieved by forging partnership and consensus within Ireland and by thinking strategically and meaningfully about our network of relationships within the European Union, with the United States and beyond.
International trade has been a key factor in our growth and Ireland is now the world’s largest exporter of software and, on a per capita basis, the third largest exporter in the world after Singapore. France is an especially important trading partner, indeed our fourth largest globally, with exports from Ireland amounting to over £4.4 billion last year. Increasingly, this growth is coming from new information and communications industries, but we continue to recognize the importance of more traditional sectors such as food and drink to the Irish economy. Irish direct investment in France also increased enormously in recent years, and there are now over 50 Irish firms, many represented here tonight, with investments in France, ranging from major established companies like Smurfit, the Kerry Group, Glen Dimplex and DCC to newer, small Irish companies such as Biotrin and Torc Telecom.
The flows have not all been one way. As our economy has grown, major opportunities have been created for French companies in Ireland, with the value of French exports to Ireland growing by over 250% during the 1990s. There is also a significant French business presence in Ireland, with over one hundred French owned or affiliated companies employing about 9,000 people.
These impressive facts and figures are underpinned by a close and ever-deepening network of friendship and respect between our two peoples and by the constant efforts of many dedicated men and women in our Embassies, State Agencies and business sectors. I would like, especially, to once again applaud the efforts of the Franco-Irish Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the contribution that it, and you its members, are making to the shared prosperity of our two countries.
Before sitting down, however, you may wish to know that gatherings of business people were not always regarded in such a positive light. This is illustrated by the following story of the Scotsman, the Irishman and the Frenchman.
The Scotsman, was the father of economics, Adam Smith, who revealed a curiously jaundiced view of the trading classes, when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations that:
“People of the same trade seldom gather together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or even in some contrivance to raise prices.”
The Irishman, the playwright Oliver Goldsmith was even more unflattering, suggesting in The Traveller that “honour sinks where commerce long prevails”.
It was left, not for the only time, to a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, to set the record straight when he observed that:
“In democracies, nothing is more great and more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed towards it.”
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Permit me to allow you on this occasion to address your attention to your meal, your passions to commerce and your imaginations to our shared future.
Gura fada buan sibh.
Thank you.