REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A YOUTH FORUM A VISION FOR 2020 ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A YOUTH FORUM A VISION FOR 2020 ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN TUESDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 2007
Dia dhíbh a chairde go léir ’s fáílte chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
You are all so welcome here to Áras an Uachtaráin this morning. I am grateful to each one of you and especially those of you who have travelled long distances to be with us today. I know that some of you have travelled from as far as Kerry and Donegal. Cork is represented as are Longford, Waterford, Kildare and our capital city, Dublin, is also well represented.
You are representatives of our future in this country – you will carry the flame forward to 2020. You, by then, will be employers or employees, mothers, fathers, members of a society which I hope will be a place you are proud of, and happy to live in. What will it be like this Ireland of 2020. How do you see it? We are here to-day to explore that question. So, apart from this brief welcome, I will mostly listen because I want to hear your views. Each one of you brings a unique perspective and this forum, A Vision for 2020, is your opportunity to voice the proposals and the vision which you believe will benefit people throughout Ireland.
About eighty of you from all around the country, from all walks of life, are here, representatives of the many thousands of young people whose adult futures are already well in the making. You are the most exciting generation every – the best educated, the most informed, the one with the most peace and the most freedom and, in particular, the freedom to stay in Ireland and make a huge contribution to your own and your county’s future.
Your views matter for they will inform your actions, your lived lives, and it is out of those things will emerge the Ireland of 2020. This forum here at Áras provides a public platform to present your views publicly and to listen to the views of your peers. What you are doing here today is a crucial form of active citizenship, of taking responsibility for the world around you, and in particular for setting its agenda, solving its problems, making it the humanly best that you can between you.
Ireland has a dramatic history – it has cast long shadows over many generations, but this generation is largely free from those shadows and empowered to do things other generations could only dream of. I, and many others, am fascinated by the possibilities and the opportunities open to you and even more fascinated by how you will use them. Here today you will start to fill in the blanks, to reveal where it is you want your generation, your genius to take this country.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “You see things and say ‘Why?’ but I dream of things that never were and I say ‘Why not?’” We, in the twenty-first century, need you to dream of the things that never were so that some day you can bring them into being. You are Ireland’s dream team of tomorrow, the most confident, most ambitious generation ever, growing up in a prosperous, multicultural Ireland, respected in Europe and in the world, and with a role to play at home on this island, in Europe and in the world. Good doesn’t just happen. Good people make it happen. And you are good people. You answered the challenge to come here and I hope your visit will be a memorable one. Enjoy yourselves, make new friends and leave fired by the possibilities that lie in front of you and by your chance to shape them.
I thank Derek Mooney for agreeing to take the Chair, and Jarlath Burns for agreeing to act as Rapporteur; I wish them all the best in their labours. A word of thanks also to Aonghus McAnally and his staff. A great amount of effort and work by your teachers has gone on behind the scenes and I would like to say a sincere ‘Go raibh míle maith agaibh’ to all of you for that.
My thanks to the Áras crew, and also to our friends from Civil Defence, for all their hard work in preparation for today.
Go n-éirí go geal libh agus go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.