Remarks by President McAleese at a reception for the Maltese Community in Ireland
Remarks by President McAleese at a reception for the Maltese Community in Ireland hosted by HE Richard Muscat Embassy of Malta
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good Afternoon, Il-Lejla It-tajba
Martin and I are deeply grateful to Ambassador Muscat and his wife Joyce for this opportunity to meet so many members of Ireland’s Maltese community and for the great hospitality of this house.
Ireland is now a truly multiethnic, multicultural society with communities large and small from the diverse nations of the world making their homes here. They make a valued contribution to our economic success and at the same time they deepen the wells of culture and experience from which our society draws its rich heritage.
The Maltese community here may be small in size but not in heart and it is playing its own strong and distinctive role in the rich mosaic of contemporary Irish society.
The Irish and Maltese share many things in common, things which make mutual empathy and fast friendship very easy. We are both small island nations at Europe’s edges. We have a history of foreign domination but now as independent and sovereign states we share a common future as partners in the European Union.
I recall as I am sure you do too, the Day of Welcomes two years ago when the representatives of the ten new member states among them Prime Minister Gonzi came to Dublin for that historic Day which changed the future of Europe so radically.
We hope that Malta will benefit greatly from membership just as Ireland has and the Union can only be enhanced by the presence of this feisty nation, with its experience of suffering and transcendence.
Each of our two island countries has its own national language which we are determined to cherish and sustain in the modern world. At the same time, we both benefit from speaking English which enables us to communicate with so much of the world. Both Irish and Maltese have recently been designated as official and working languages of the European Union. This provides us with an opportunity to give voice to our special identities within the European family and helps underpin our efforts to protect our precious and distinctive cultural traditions.
It should come as no surprise that relations between Ireland and Malta have always been very friendly. Our Governments first established formal diplomatic ties in 1970. We were delighted that Malta opened a resident Embassy here in 2005 under the very able leadership of Ambassador Muscat and, happily, Ireland was able to reciprocate in September 2005 with the appointment of our first resident Chargé d'Affaires in Valletta. An Ireland-Malta Chamber of Commerce has recently been established and I would like to wish it every success in its work. Many Irish tourists visit your beautiful island each year too so clearly at many levels our bilateral relations are strong and healthy.
Each of you brings Malta right into the heart of Irish life and I hope that having chosen to make your lives here whether for the short or long term, Ireland has made you welcome and has become a happy second home. That I know is what the Irish people would wish for you.
It has been a great pleasure to have had this chance to meet you and to wish you and your families every success in the future. Through your lives here among us we are, between us, helping to fulfil the founding vision of the European Union for a strong family of very different peoples bound by common values and a working comfortably together for a shared future.
Thank you all. Gratsi.