Remarks by President McAleese at a reception to mark the 40th anniversary of Concern
Remarks by President McAleese at a reception to mark the 40th anniversary of Concern Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Céad míle fáilte romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin - a hundred thousand welcomes to each of you to this 40th birthday celebration for Concern.
Forty years ago it was the appalling suffering of the people of Biafra, set out before our eyes night after night through the then relatively new phenomenon of television, that awoke in us an unprecedented level of concern and generosity. In less than three months, a quarter of a million pounds was raised thanks to the work of Irish missionaries, foremost among them the legendary brothers
Father Jack and Father Aengus Finucane, and Fr Raymond Kennedy, linking in to his brother and sister-in-law, John and Kay O’Loughlin Kennedy, back home. The bond between the Irish people and the struggling people of the developing world had long been cemented by the quiet work of generations of Irish missionaries. But now that relationship was pushed into a new gear as a new kind of imagination and energy was brought to bear on the work of delivering aid and delivering it effectively.
And so Concern was born, a non-governmental, non-denominational, humanitarian organisation, fresh, exciting and now dedicated exclusively to the work of care for the world’s poorest and most overlooked. Soon, of course, the organisation’s reach stretched far beyond Africa as it became a major player in the delivery of aid globally, coping with the many humanitarian crises that flow from the cruelty of humanity itself and sometimes from the cruelty of nature. To the people at the receiving end of your help, you have been a welcome, even a miraculous friend on the ground as well as a formidable champion in high places where policies and plans are made that impact directly and indirectly on the everyday lives of the poorest.
Seamus Heaney, in Ten Glosses, asks, “Who is my neighbour?” and then, in an echo of the old catechism, replies, “My neighbour is all mankind.” It is a sentiment which permeates both your work and the motives of all those who support you, for you need an army of volunteers to collect the money that is the seed-corn of your work and another army to do the work itself. There are those who give by going and those who go by giving, as has been said before. You have been a vital bridge between us and our much poorer neighbours, a conduit between our wealth of resources and their poverty of resources. Our care for them, our shared responsibility for their welfare simply has to be more than mere words and you translate our care into food for body and mind, empowerment and opportunity.
Today we understand clearly in Ireland that our responsibility is not just an individual responsibility, though it is that, but it is also a collective responsibility as we reach out to others, nation to nation, community to community, heart to heart. You are also a bridge between each of us as individual citizens and as community, for you work to great effect with our government agency, Irish Aid, and their confidence in you is attested to in many ways, not least in its €148m
five-year funding programme. In recent weeks our capital city’s main street has become a showcase of the heart we have as a people for the developing world and also an ongoing challenge, with the opening of Irish Aid’s new Volunteering and Information Centre on O’Connell Street.
Nothing you have done was ever done for thanks or recognition but on this anniversary it is only right that we stop for a moment and take time to acknowledge all that has been done, why it has been done, how it has been done and the wonderful people who, in a huge variety of ways have been the hands of Concern’s work. We all know the awesome work that remains to be done and the sad reality that each day brings a dreadful new crisis to your door, with Kenya suddenly on the radar today and no-one knows what tomorrow will bring across our troubled earth. Wherever crisis hits, wherever poverty or disease overwhelm, there are men, women and children, hurting, crying, hoping, praying and feeling an isolation few can truly understand. The waste of their lives, their dreams, talents and ambitions is a scandal. We know because we were once those people. Your work connects us to our own grim and hungry past and helps us in these prosperous times to reach beyond a preoccupation with egoistic consumerism to a place of higher and more noble, moral responsibility. Our giving becomes a mighty receiving, a moral insight and a moral strength that is beyond price. We owe you and those you serve so much. A special word of congratulations to your Chief Executive, Tom Arnold, and for all that you have done in continuing the great work of Aengus Finucane and those who carried the torch before you. Tom would be the first to acknowledge the power of team. So through you, Tom, can I thank each of you here, thank you to all who have helped grow Concern into the global phenomenon it has become.
A big thank you also to Cibé, whose wonderful music we’ve been enjoying, and who, I believe, are going to play another piece for us now. I hope that you will all enjoy the rest of your time here with us. Have a wonderful afternoon, and thank you, once more, for all that you do.