REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW CATHOLIC HOUSING AID SOCIETY APARTMENT BLOCK
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW CATHOLIC HOUSING AID SOCIETY APARTMENT BLOCK FOR THE ELDERLY ST. ANNE’S
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu ar an ócáid mhór seo. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as an gcuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croíúil. My particular thanks to Donagh O’Daly, Chairman of the Catholic Housing Aid Society, for his kind invitation to me to perform the official opening of this new St. Anne’s apartment block here in Woodpark.
It’s been said that you never really grow old if you still have the urge to throw a snowball and the past week has provided ample opportunity to test our intention, if not our actions, on that scale! But the adverse weather has also reminded us just how vulnerable are the old and frail in our society, how risky it is for them to venture outdoors, how much they need a warm home, a hot meal to get them safely through these wintry days. Thankfully, throughout Ireland, families, communities, neighbours and voluntary organisations have been making sure that our older citizens are not isolated or cut off. They have been looking out for them and they deserve a lot of thanks as do the senior citizens who sensibly ask for help when they need it and see in that help a building up of community, of intergenerational solidarity and the practice of goodness in our society.
This housing project came about because the people who made it happen live by a coherent and important value system - it is not about rampant or selfish individualism but its polar opposite - it’s about taking responsibility for helping to create a caring and mutually supportive community. It’s about seeing a need and deciding to be the people who meet it. It’s about an unselfishness, a graciousness and a goodness which are essential if our lives are to be more than living as strangers among strangers. Abraham Lincoln once said ‘in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years’. Catholic Housing Aid knows how important our homes are to us, how important it is that our senior citizens live fulfilling and enjoyable lives, live in circumstances where they feel that their length of years, their investment in life, are valued and respected in ways that are meaningful and practical.
The Catholic Housing Aid Society has over forty years of investment in housing for our disadvantaged senior citizens. It started with a small group, including the late Fr. Tom Scully S.J. and of course its first apartment block opening in 1969 in Dublin bore his name. That first venture was hugely exciting but this one today is at a level of quality and service provision that would both astound and delight Fr Scully and his co-founders. Here in St. Anne’s there is everything that is needed to secure the independence and dignity of each resident. There is a welcoming community to belong to, to contribute to, to be part of; there is company; there is privacy; there is safety and security; there is peace of heart and mind for there is discreet help available when it is needed. There are forty-one individual apartments, kitted out to the highest of standards, with terrific communal living facilities but what will make St. Anne’s a success is the fact that these bricks and mortar will be filled out with lives fully lived. The residents who have been living in temporary accommodation for over two years to facilitate the construction project will be delighted to have Christmas in their permanent new homes and I wish each one the happiest of Christmases among friends, family and good neighbours.
I thank from the bottom of my heart all the partners who have brought this fine development to fruition: the Catholic Housing Aid Society, Park Developments Limited, the management and staff of the facility, elected members and the officials of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. The work you do is a very important statement of your shared and passionate intent to make our society one that fully honours the ideal of a republic set out in the Proclamation as a place which cherished the children of the nation equally, and in the Constitution, which asserts the dignity and equality of each citizen. Your work puts flesh on those words - it tells all of us that achieving that republic is our individual and collective responsibility. Here your meitheal worked the miracle of creating St. Anne’s. We need to believe in the power of meitheal to create miracles - you are proof of it. It is a wonderful privilege to be the first visitor to these lovely new homes and to officially open such a heartwarming place.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.