Remarks at the Official Launch of the Community Platform for the North West Region Donegal
Donegal, Wednesday, 20 November, 2002
Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur láthair inniu ar an ocáid speisalta seo. Tá mé buíoch díbh as an gcuireadh agus an bhfáilte fhíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
I would like to thank Seán Lawless for inviting me to join you today to launch this Community Platform on behalf of twenty-one Community Development Projects in the North West Region. I thank you all most sincerely for the hearty Donegal welcome.
Since coming to Office, I have had the privilege of meeting many local community groups from all over the country. There are literally thousands of them harnessing an army of volunteers in order to improve the quality of life for their neighbours, families and friends. They are a remarkable phenomenon and one we should be very grateful for. It was at a community gathering in Cork recently that someone said there are two types of people – drains and radiators and I wasn’t attending a plumbing conference. The “drains” sit around giving out about all the things that are wrong, the radiators get out there and fix them.
This Platform is about radiators - its about doers, its about how individuals form themselves into groups, how they use their united strength and imagination to change their world for the better, how they find solutions to problems by creating partnerships and alliances, by planning intelligently and lobbying effectively. This Platform is about turning a random bunch of individuals into vibrant, dynamic, caring communities and doing it the only way possible, by sheer determination and infinite patience and hard work. “Ní neart gur chur le chéile” the old Irish proverb says and it is right - we only begin to comprehend our strength when we work with others for a common goal.
The re-vitalisation of this region is your common goal and just as many pairs of hands are better than one if you are trying to shift a heavy fallen tree that is blocking the road, so too many hands are needed to shift the legacy of decades when the North West knew little else but the heartbreak of emigration, unemployment and
under-achievement. The Border created its own additional problems as did the backdrop of violence these past thirty years. There has been plenty to keep “the drains” busy complaining and plenty to inhibit and daunt the “radiators” but thankfully they never gave up. Instead they looked for ways to build up a team capable of removing obstacles and creating a pathway to a better future. That team now embraces not just the community and voluntary groups but statutory agencies, Local Government and Central Government in particular the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, which funds and supports the National Community Development Support Programme.
With your help, individuals are empowered to become more self-confident in their skills and abilities. Each person who becomes stronger through your work helps the community to become stronger and makes our country stronger. You play a crucial role in developing and deepening civil society in Ireland making it more robust, more resilient, more achievement oriented a more humanly decent place to live.
This Community Platform is a crucial new resource supporting and encouraging all the Community Projects in the North West Region and it is more than that. It is a bold statement that the future of the North West has been taken in hand by those who are going to live it and they intend to make it the best future this region has known. Today is just the beginning of that future and I hope that the Community Platform will continue to go from strength to strength bringing opportunity and optimism to a part of Ireland as renowned for its beauty as it is for the kindness of its people. That generosity and kindness is at the heart of the Community Platform. May it be richly rewarded.
I am delighted to declare this Community Platform for the North West Region officially open.
Gúim rath agus séan ar bhur gcuid oibre san am atá le teacht. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.