REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A LUNCH CO–HOSTED BY IRELAND-CANADA CC AND ENTERPRISE IRELAND
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A BUSINESS LUNCH CO–HOSTED BY IRELAND-CANADA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND ENTERPRISE IRELAND
Dia dhíbh a chairde.
Martin and I are delighted to be back in Toronto and especially pleased to be at this lunch co-hosted by Enterprise Ireland and the Ireland-Canada Chamber of Commerce. My thanks to Chamber President Ken Tracey, and EI’s ubiquitous Marina Donohue and their respective teams. Like Ireland and Canada, they work well together, for they have a common focus, a deep cultural compatibility and a burning ambition to improve life through improved economic conditions.
We are fortunate to meet in times that are, for Ireland, nothing short of exceptional. We have today a confluence of peace, prosperity and partnership. The once twisted relationships that led to mistrust and violence within Northern Ireland, between the jurisdictions that share the island of Ireland and between Ireland and Great Britain, have all been realigned and straightened out, releasing a powerful new energy which will in the years ahead reveal its fullest potential.
The road we travelled to these happier times was tortuous and long but we were fortunate in our friends including our friends here in Canada where support and encouragement for the peace process was always strong and expressed in practical ways, whether through your government’s generous financial contributions to the International Fund for Ireland, or the work of individuals and groups in promoting reconciliation or in the many distinguished Canadian public servants whose skills and expertise helped to prise open and resolve what once seemed to be intractable problems. To all those involved, a heartfelt thank you.
To many Canadians whose forbears emigrated from Ireland it may be hard to imagine the scale of transformation of that once poor and underachieving nation. Today it is one of the world’s leading high-tech globalised economies, a place people migrate to, a place people no longer emigrate from, a place of virtually full employment and high living standards.
Our economic success started with investment in education. That harnessed and harvested the biggest natural resource we have - the brainpower of our people. Their genius gave us a successful model of social partnership where government regularly sits down at a table shared with employers, trade unions, farmers and the community sector to hammer out agreement on wages, productivity, spend on social inclusion and all the things that promote industrial stability and a strong stakeholder culture of consensus. This consensus, coupled with attractive corporate tax levels, a flexible, well-educated young workforce, membership of the Eurozone and access to the European Union market of almost half a billion people, has succeeded in attracting substantial foreign direct investment to Ireland and growing a very significant and successful indigenous entrepreneurial sector. It is good to see prime examples from both sectors here today.
Contemporary Ireland is home to more than one thousand world-class companies in areas such as information technology, communications, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and financial services. The government’s economic strategy makes a high priority of keeping Ireland a leading destination for high quality foreign direct investment and an encouraging environment for home-grown entrepreneurs like Iona Technologies, Wildwave, Fineos, Curam and Norkom who are well represented at this event.
We know just how vital research and development are if we are to stay ahead in the knowledge economy and so, last year, the government launched a strategic plan which committed nearly six billion Canadian dollars for science, technology and innovation over the coming seven years. We aim to double the number of PhDs, encourage postdoctoral research and create sustainable and attractive career paths for researchers in our move to provide a truly fertile ground for innovation.
R&D is an area that lends itself to international collaboration so it is no surprise to see links already well advanced between Ireland and Canada, with the establishment of a Bio-Link Canada Chapter, the partnership with the MARS Centre here in Toronto and last year’s agreement between Enterprise Ireland and Canada’s National Research Council. These are sure signs that people are working hard to advance our common interests and to use to the full the opportunities that are currently available.
In terms of commerce between our two countries the indicators are fascinating and exciting. Merchandise trade is growing at a phenomenal rate with figures for 2006 up almost a quarter on the previous year. Around eighty Canadian companies are present in Ireland while thirty Irish firms have a presence here, six of which, I understand, have opened this year alone.
Against such a positive background, the opening of an Enterprise Ireland office in Toronto is an unambiguous signal of the government’s intention to intensify our trade with Canada. Nick Marmion comes to you with a host of overseas experience from around the globe and I wish Nick and his team every success. Those official links which of course are built through networks of human contacts are augmented and helped by the many bonds of kinship, the tourists who go back and forward, the commerce and the mutual cultural curiosity that keeps Ireland and Canada engaged with each other in a lively, dynamic way.
Already 180 000 visitors travel between our two countries each year and the air services agreement signed earlier this year sets the scene for considerable growth in that figure. Those who come to Ireland will find the traditional Irish welcome and a country with a rich and ancient history, heritage and culture. They will also find a thoroughly modern, multicultural country scaling up its infrastructure exponentially as we invest €184 billion over the coming six years as part of a comprehensive, national development plan to radically upgrade our transport systems, improve our tourism infrastructure and create a competitive and environmentally-friendly enterprise base and community base.
The Irish are and always have been an optimistic people with a joy in life no matter how difficult the circumstances. Today the circumstances are the best they have ever been. Our best-educated, most problem-solving generation is laying the foundation of the most successful and socially inclusive Ireland in our history. It is an Ireland that is very comfortable in Europe, very comfortable in Canada, an Ireland which understands that small countries benefit enormously from openness, from strategic partnerships and collaborations that stretch across the globe. We look forward to many new, shared endeavours linking our shores in ways that those who sailed the famine ships could never in their most feverish dreams have imagined. Given a choice of generations to belong to, there would be a long queue for this one and I wish each of you well as you work to extract from all the opportunities around you the very best future for yourselves, your children, for Ireland and for Canada.
Thank you for your invitation to speak. Go raibh míle maith agaibh, and I wish you the very best in your future ventures.