REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE “OTHER BORDERS” INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S HEALTH CONFERENCE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE “OTHER BORDERS” INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S HEALTH CONFERENCE EVERGLADES HOTEL, DERRY
Is breá liom bheith anseo i bhur measc ag an ócaid seo, agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl dibh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin.
Good morning everyone. Thank you very much for inviting me here to join you this morning for this conference which Derry Well Woman have organised on behalf of the Cross-Border Women’s Health Network. The network is a wonderful partnership of North West bodies from both sides of the border, working hard at building bridges, reducing exclusion and improving women’s health right across the entire region. It is precisely the type of body that I hope to see more of, helping to capture the enormous synergies that lie waiting to be harnessed on this island, synergies that only collaboration and sharing can release, synergies that bring benefits to everyone.
While I am, of course, pleased to see a topic like women’s health being aired in any forum in Ireland, it is a real pleasure to see it being addressed here, so close to the border - reaching across it, in fact, to women throughout the island of Ireland. Many of us, on both sides of the border, face similar types of issues, to an extent which we are only now beginning to understand.
A political border creates its own issues for those who live close to that border and who need to access services. Women have always had to develop ways of navigating borders, for often in their lives they have been prevented from doing the things they want to do because of other kinds of borders - those that gather force in the mind and are translated into subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle barriers of exclusion. For over two decades Derry Well Woman has been working to make sure women do not fall victim to those forms of exclusion and to ensure that the needs of women are met and championed.
The Ireland which we are now building is an entirely different place from the Ireland we lived in when Derry Well Woman was formed. We are today an island at peace, and although there is much work still to be done, we know that the bad old days of going toe-to-toe, of ignoring one another, of remaining paralysed by the legacy of enmity and mistrust, wasted so much talent and opportunity and robbed us of much greater and more effective use of the resources that are all around us. Today’s Ireland is characterised by an emerging culture of dialogue and respectful partnership. It is so important that we make the very best of these days for when we think that the toxic harvest we have had to live with in our lifetimes was seeded hundreds of years ago and reseeded over many generations, we have to be very clear where we are now - the worst of that awful harvest is now gathered in. The land is ready for reseeding but this time with good seed so that the harvest we gather in the years ahead will bring the gifts of peace and prosperity, of opportunity and safety to every corner of this island. One of the most important seeds is cross-border cooperation.
Healthcare in general, and women’s health in particular has a lot to gain from this new culture of cooperation. We do not know how this story will grow but already you are fully on the ball with your February report, Women Speaking Across the Border. It gives us an excellent starting point and will surely inform discussions here, opening up as it does the landscapes of lived lives: of women who had to undertake leadership roles at home and in the community when their spouses were killed or injured or imprisoned; of women who had to dig deep to find new coping skills to deal with the awesome stress of living in a culture of deeply embedded violence that made everyone vulnerable and afraid.
As one of the women said,
“[Women] used to just think it was their lot to live with stress and anxiety, that they weren’t entitled to have a life for themselves, they were there for everyone else.”
You don’t need a degree in medicine or psychology to imagine the effect of this sort of stoical, self-abasing attitude. The statistics say it all. The rate of consumption of prescribed sedatives here is almost twice that of the South, compared to men, women are more likely to suffer from PTSD, and more than one-and-a-half times more likely to report having suffered mental health problems. These invisible, but highly debilitating effects of long-term stress impact catastrophically on everyday lives, draining hope, draining confidence, diminishing the capacity to be a problem-solver in our own lives. This is the context in which Derry Well Woman is operating, a context changed utterly for the better in many respects but also one in which long-suppressed needs can finally begin to be addressed openly and honestly and urgently.
Add to that context another one which many jurisdictions face, one which crucifies childhoods and adulthoods and destroys family life, and that is the appalling story of domestic violence. The recent report by Foyle Women’s Aid, “Domestic Violence – A Health Emergency?” painted a shocking picture of the extent to which women in this region are exposed to domestic violence. Home and family, two words that should mean love, nurturing, care, safety, things which help us grow humanly, things we all need and desire to complete us humanly, things children cannot grow up properly without. Yet for so many home is a prison, a place of frightening intimidation and fear, a place where control is exercised through bullying and aggression used by people who have the most profound duty of care and who abuse it criminally day after day.
Across Ireland, people and Governments are uniting to say “no more”. South of the Border, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has recently established COSC, the Irish Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. COSC is hosting its first National Conference this week. Last week on this side of the border Minister Michael McGimpsey hosted the first meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Domestic and Sexual Violence which will co-ordinate efforts on domestic and sexual violence issues. Here are two neighbours focussing on the same issue with the same focus and determination at the same time. Here is a real opportunity to shape tomorrow’s shared landscape with the shared determination that domestic violence is going to be decommissioned, is not going to be among the toxic seeds we carry into the future.
Woodrow Wilson had the right idea when he said, “I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow”. Sharing wisdom, experience and insight is not like sharing a bar of chocolate. The maths are precisely the opposite. Your openness and your sharing, as seen in events like this, ensure that the best of local and international knowledge is gathered and put at the service of women and their health the length and breadth of Ireland.
There is an Irish saying - giorraíonn beirt bother - two shortens the road. Let’s hope that between us, by working together in ways that history frustrated for too long, we can in this generation together lay the foundations for an island of Ireland in which the talents of all its people of whatever politics or religion, whether men or women, are helped to blossom to their fullest – a place where all the barriers that hinder full empowerment of women will be consigned to history. I thank you for all you are doing to make that happen without delay, for using this hard-earned and radical moment when a sea-change is possible but only if we take a chance on one another.
I wish you every success for the rest of this conference.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.