REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF OAKLEE HOUSING TRUST
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF OAKLEE HOUSING TRUST ON MONDAY, 17 JUNE, 2002
Tá gliondar croí orm bheith anseo libh inniu ag an ócáid seo agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as bhur gcaoin-chuireadh.
I am delighted to be with you this evening to officially launch Oaklee Housing Trust in Dublin and I thank Ian Elliot, your Chief Executive for the kind invitation.
There is a simple and much loved poem by Padraic Colum that many of us learnt as children. It is called An Old Woman of the Roads and it begins:
“O to have a little house
To own a hearth and stool and all”
It is softly and whimsically written, the old homeless woman, cold and tired allowing her imagination to take her to the world she would wish for herself.
“I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and shining delph.”
But the poem is much more than a piece of superficial whimsy. Colum’s father was a workhouse master and he knew from observation how bleak life was for those who had no place of their own.
When in the last verse the old woman tells us:
“And I am praying to God on high
And I am praying him night and day
For a little house - a house of my own
Out of the wind and the rain’s way”
We know the chances are the old woman went to her grave without ever knowing the security and rootedness that comes from belonging - to that house, on that road in that parish, in that town. Colum was indignant at living in a country where human beings were rendered so utterly dispossessed of human dignity when they were dispossessed of their homes. We are fortunate to live in different times, times characterised by economic success, by growing wealth, increased opportunity and yet we know that today there are men, women and children who are still praying to God, night and day for a home to call their own, a home they can afford, a place where they can fully belong.
That is why the arrival of Oaklee Housing Trust to the voluntary housing sector is another very welcome and important step towards answering those prayers and realizing the ambition we have for our country – that it will soon be a place where all enjoy a place at the centre and none are spectators marooned on the margins. Oaklee’s track record in the provision of social housing in Great Britain and Northern Ireland is second to none. I am delighted that you have extended your involvement here to include the whole island of Ireland.
Oaklee now joins the great partnership which is working to make our society not only truly fully inclusive but fully utilizing all its potential. There is something immensely sad and wasteful about a life half-lived through under-achievement or overwhelmed by the powerlessness that comes from poverty, or adverse circumstances.
Life distributes its challenges unevenly. Coping with the capriciousness of illness or disability or old-age can be difficult enough without the added worry of not having a house to call your own, or living in unsuitable accommodation, or living with only a precarious grip on a home. Thankfully organisations such as Oaklee, staffed by wonderfully caring people who are motivated not out of any self-interest but simply by a genuine desire to help others, willingly and eagerly take up the challenges in the lives of strangers. You go the journey with them, providing practical and very real help to people when they need it most.
Thirty years ago this year my family lost our home through violence in Belfast. I have never forgotten the insecurity, the sickening sense of freefall which that episode provoked. I remember too how utterly dependent we were on the goodness and kindness of others and how their help assisted us eventually to pull together the bits and pieces of our lives. Today as Oaklee Housing Trust announces the first of a number of important housing schemes from Donegal to Dublin it is great to know that many lives will be changed by what you do. The plans you have for many housing developments throughout Ireland including sheltered housing for the elderly, group homes for people with learning disabilities and family accommodation, these are essentially plans for human beings to live decently, safely, happily. You make hope and opportunity out of bricks and mortar and more than that, because you are rooted in the voluntary sector, that miraculous endeavour which exists simply because people care about each other, your work has a huge value in building up civic strength and confidence. You build up the individual and the strong, empowered individuals build up strong, resilient communities.
I warmly commend everyone involved in the Oaklee Housing Trust. I thank you for all you have done and are doing and I wish you well in the years ahead. May your work be vindicated many times over by the renewed and reinvigorated lives of those you work to serve.
Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.