REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE RE-LAUNCH OF THE NORTHSIDE COMMUNITY LAW CENTER, DUBLIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE RE-LAUNCH OF THE NORTHSIDE COMMUNITY LAW CENTER, DUBLIN, WEDNESDAY, 23RD FEBRUARY, 2005
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá lúcháir orm bheith anseo libh inniu agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh go léir as fáilte fiorchaoin a chur romham.
I am delighted to be here in your new offices this afternoon to celebrate the re-launch of the Northside Community Law Centre (formerly Coolock Community Law Centre). My thanks to Turlough O’Donnell for inviting me to share this day with you and to each and every one of you for that warm and generous welcome.
Changing the name of an organisation is not something done lightly but in your case it is a badge of honour and a measure of the success of the original Law Centre that today its reach extends throughout the Northside constituencies of Dublin North Central and Dublin North East.
When Turlough O'Donnell, wrote to invite me, he said that the Centre "stands today, as it did then, as testimony to an old idea, that no lawyer is quite able to forget; that there is a connectedness between truth, justice and law". Thirty years ago it was faith and hope in that old and potent idea that led to the setting up by FLAC of a neighbourhood law centre that would empower the local community. Three decades of advocacy later there has been a manifest growth in community confidence and problem-solving capacity. You put yourselves at the service of individuals whose lives had hit problems that needed a lot of help and support to straighten out. With your care and professionalism many of them found answers where before they could see only insurmountable difficulties. Each human being helped by you is a stronger person, stronger for themselves, their family and their community and each is someone with a renewed faith in legal process, in community solidarity and in our civic ambition to be a fully inclusive society - a place where all enjoy the centre and none look on from the margins. To your great credit over the years the centre has represented over 6,000 people, and advised more than 20,000 others - each client representing a unique set of circumstances which you had to respond to with sensitivity, speed and thoroughness.
Dealing with fraught legal problems can be a daunting process, its complexities and its costs can present frightening prospects for people. To have local, easy access to credible professional legal advice removes a huge burden of worry and that is the vocation you have so honourably set for yourselves and fulfilled these three decades. It is a vocation you recommit to today with even greater enthusiasm and dedication. It is a vocation that extends, of course, far beyond the realm of offering legal services to people in need.
In his work Social Inclusion and the Legal System, Gerry White has pointed to the significance of what you do here when he said that your centre "has made important contributions to debate on the reform of such areas as social welfare appeals, remedies for domestic violence, legal rights of deserted wives, legal representation of children, medical welfare appeals, garda training, debt management and court organisation." That ringing endorsement of the value of your work and the wide contribution it has made to national debates and to the development of better national policies is one you are entitled to take great pride in today. Thirty years ago, a good idea took shape without much money or resources and nothing like these very fine new premises. Tús maith is leath na hoibre says the old Irish proverb and that good start formed the basis of what brings us here today. For the next thirty years it will be the Northside Community Law Centre that brings hope to the chaos in people’s lives and brings their story to the attention of the nation. Your work will be an important part of the huge jigsaw puzzle of effort that builds community resilience and strength.
You know from conviction and from experience how essential that resilience is to individuals, families and to community. You also know from experience just how much effort it takes to make the fabric of community strong and robust, how it does not weave itself by coincidence but only by the daily lived efforts of those who commit to community building. I am in the lucky position as President, more than most others, to see the colossal work, undertaken by organisations, like yours, which support and sustain our nation’s great heartland of community. You make it happen. It is far from easy. Funds have to be raised, partnerships established, professionalism guaranteed, services sustained and developed, clients supported and all of this day in and day out without rest. Even on a day of celebration like today I know that a colossal amount of planning, cleaning and organising went in to making the place glow with the spirit that keeps it going each and every day. T o everyone who worked so hard to make this day possible I say thank you on my own behalf and on behalf of all those you have helped and will help in the years ahead.
As I look around the room today I am very struck by some lines of W.B.Yeats, and, if I may paraphrase slightly, may I say of the centre,
. . . think where men’s glory most begins and ends,
And say its glory was, it had such friends.
It could not have better.
Go gcúití Dia bhur saothar daoibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.