REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT GALWAY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FESTIVAL THE GALWAY EDUCATION CENTRE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT GALWAY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FESTIVAL THE GALWAY EDUCATION CENTRE, WELLPARK, GALWAY 15 NOVEMBER
Good afternoon everyone and thank you that warm welcome to what is a very exciting Festival.
First, congratulations to some of the people who are making the Festival so fascinating and such fun - the pupils from Peterswell, Scoil Chaitríona Junior, Coláiste na Coiribe and St Paul’s Secondary School, Oughterard. Their work is on display here for everyone to see and it is really impressive and a great credit to pupils, teachers and sponsors. Seeing so many of our young citizens making their mark on science and technology gives us a lot of hope in our future for we need young men and women to make science and technology, their lives, their passion, their careers and the signs here at the Galway Science Festival are that the interest in science is huge and very rewarding.
Here we are in the middle of National Science Week with Galway’s own Science Festival, now in its tenth year, gathering together all the sectors that make up community and getting everyone talking and thinking about science and technology.
Special thanks should go to Noel Treacy, TD, patron and founder of the Festival, who has, of course, just celebrated 25 years as a TD, as well as thanks to the members of the Festival Steering Committee led by Festival Director, Bernard Kirk. Tom Hyland, Richie Byrne and Simon Lenihan have all worked tirelessly to make sure that this event brings home to all of us the huge opportunities that science and technology offer to our young people and the massive role they play in every aspect of our daily lives.
Often when we think of our Irish culture and heritage we talk enthusiastically about our music and literature but forget to mention our own considerable contribution to the world of science. So this festival reintroduces us to those Irish titans of science who are world renowned: Robert Boyle, the father of chemistry; Ernest Walton, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics; John Holland, inventor of the submarine from just across the bay in Liscannor; and more recently, Physics Professor, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars - rapidly rotating neutron stars. There are many more and our hope is that there will be many more, for in the knowledge economy of our times, it is those who excel in science and technology who will drive our continued growth and prosperity and keep our economy right at the cutting edge.
The Government’s Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation sets out clearly that our future success relies upon our employing scientists, engineers and technicians of the highest calibre. So it is no exaggeration to say that we are depending for our best future on the young scientists gathered here today. We want them to grow up comfortable with and curious about the world of science and technology.
It is where the greatest adventures, the biggest unexplored mysteries are waiting to be experienced. It is a place that needs people with a true spirit of exploration and a thirst for discovery.
Here in Galway, the Science and Technology Festival and Science Week offers a fascinating, a tantalising glimpse of the profoundly exciting future that awaits the thousands of students who are choosing to make their careers in science, engineering and technology. I hope many more will consider joining them!
Enjoy the Festival!