REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF A HOUSING SCHEME AND DAY CARE CENTRE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF A HOUSING SCHEME AND DAY CARE CENTRE FOR THE DROMIN-ATHLACCA HOUSING
Is mór an pléisiúir dom bheith anseo i bhur measc inniu. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.
I am delighted to join you all here today to officially open this wonderful housing scheme and Day Care Centre on behalf of the Dromin-Athlacca Housing Project. Thank you for the great welcome you have given me.
This is the UN Year of the Volunteer, and this project is the perfect example of just how important voluntary effort remains in Ireland today. It is tremendously reassuring to know that even in this time of growing prosperity, the spirit of neighbour helping neighbour which sustained us in harder times, is still at the core of community life in Ireland. That generosity of spirit is a tremendous resource and here in Athlacca, these houses and day care centre are evidence of just how effectively you have channelled that spirit, putting it to work on behalf of older people in this community. I would like to pay tribute to everyone on the Committee, and to all those who rattled moneyboxes, raised funds, and stuck with the project through the inevitable ups and downs to its triumphant completion. You deserve to take great pride in yourselves and your community.
It is appropriate that this development has been named “Dawn Court” – not just because the local river, The Morning Star, was originally known as The Dawn, but also because of the new beginning it has provided for the residents of these 11 houses. The project recognises that a house isn’t just about having a roof over your head – that’s just the beginning. It’s also about having a place to call home, a place within the community, neighbours to call on, friends to invite around; it’s about exchanging local news, recalling old stories and embellishing them with the retelling. It means having somewhere to feel safe and secure, somewhere to belong. And it’s especially important that we offer all that and more to older people in our community; not only do they deserve it, because it is their efforts and hard work in years gone by that made today’s successful Ireland possible, but our older citizens are an incredible resource of experience, wisdom, understanding and insight and it’s a resource we don’t yet tap into effectively enough.
We need to place older people at the centre of community life, symbolically and in reality, to find fresh channels for accessing their wisdom and experience, to discover new ways for the young to listen to the old, to learn from them and learn about them. Any community, any society, that can do all that, will be the richer for it, and I would like to pay tribute to you here in Dromin-Athlacca for making such a good start. In fact, I understand that this development stands on the site of the old creamery, which as well as its primary purpose, served for so long as a centre of interaction, discussion of world events and of news closer to home. It’s good to see that that tradition lives on through these houses and the centre, and I wish all of the residents, who are already well settled here, many years of health and happiness here. I believe that one of the residents, Josie Wightman, returned from Jersey where she had spent 60 years of her life, and great credit is due to the people of Athlacca that you were able to make her dream of returning to her native place for her golden years a reality.
Thanks are also due to the Department of the Environment and Local Government which, through Limerick County Council, has provided a great deal of the funding for the project, together with the National Lottery and, most importantly, local fundraisers. I believe the day care centre is set to embark on a new, exciting phase in September, when thanks to FÁS, you will have your first staff member, Breda O’Leary and I wish you every success with that.
Congratulations once again to all those involved. I wish all of the residents continued happiness in Dawn Court for many years to come.
Guím Rath Dé oraibh go léir sna blianta atá romhaibh.