REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION ANNUAL AWARDS CEREMONY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION ANNUAL AWARDS CEREMONY, BARBICAN CENTRE, LONDON
Tá áthas orm bheith libh inniu ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
I would like to thank the Chair, Peter Nicholson and Chief Executive, Andrew Freemantle for the kind invitation which allows me to share this most important annual event with the members and friends of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
This Institution embraces the peoples of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with its remarkable service of care for those at sea. The debt we all owe to it is as hard to fully measure as it is impossible to repay and I have been privileged as President of Ireland to meet the men and women of nerve and courage who offer their skill and even their lives in order that strangers may be safe at sea. We have met on days of celebration when a new boat is launched or when the Institution was marking a big birthday. We have met on sad days when we called to mind the lives lost at sea and reminded ourselves of its perils and our dependence on this band of extraordinary volunteers. The very scene and circumstance which terrifies others so much they want to flee in terror of their lives, is the one that Institution members head out into. They leave cosy homes, safe firesides and pitch themselves against the elements to offer help to the unfortunate and at times the foolhardy. In real terms, this means that since the Institution was founded over 136,000 lives have been saved. In 2003 alone, 1,112 people were rescued around the Irish coast.
To offer, as the Institution does, an on-call 24 hour lifeboat service for search and rescue within 50 miles of our coasts from 231 stations, is a very serious undertaking. It relies entirely on the dedication and commitment from over
4,600 people who volunteer as crew members and who willingly devote a fair amount of their free time to training so that on that dangerous day of callout, they offer the best skills as well as the best of all that is humanly decent. It is utterly phenomenal that such a first rate and intimidatingly high-risk service is provided entirely on a volunteer basis. No law commands anyone to undertake this work. No lure of money, or fame or even simple thanks. This is the human spirit at its most unselfish, most humble, most reassuring and that is why I am so proud to be here among the Institution’s deserving awardees.
We can count the lives saved, the hours spent in training and in rescue operations, the money raised, the stations manned but we can never count the full impact of such unselfishness: such a powerful sign of contradiction in a world often beset by cynicism and selfish individualism. You are the people whose hands and hearts turn random groups of individuals into a community, with a transcendent value system and an heroic spirit. For that too we give you thanks and thank God for you.
It takes an army of fundraisers to keep this volunteer army afloat and they too are surely deserving of our respect and gratitude this evening. Their work is essential to the entire RNLI operation. Working at many different levels, locally, regionally and nationally they invent ever more imaginative and effective ways to prise money out of even the most reluctant of pockets, so that the RNLI can have the best equipment and facilities with which to carry out its crucial mission. I am delighted to see so many of the awards today going to the Institution’s fundraisers and I am glad to say that the Government of Ireland shares some of the burden by providing a substantial grant to the organisation in Ireland each year.
Since the RNLI was first founded by Sir William Hillary it has become a much loved, much admired and deeply respected body. Sometimes the relationship between these two neighbouring islands has not been very neighbourly and there have been stormy times. Through them all, this Institution kept its focus very simple, so simple that it was decades ahead of virtually all the rest in promoting a culture of cooperation between Ireland and Britain.
This organisation illustrates brilliantly the benefits of inter-island partnership and happily the last number of years have seen a considerable widening of the range of cooperative ventures on both the North/South and East/West axis. A new mood of friendship is growing, a fresh culture of consensus is nudging into oblivion the old culture of conflict. We have a peace process and we have the makings of a real peace. We also have the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to thank for showing us what is possible. But then this Institution has always done the thing that others had no stomach for, the thing others ran away from, the thing that takes bravery and boldness, faith in self, trust in colleagues and huge compassion for the suffering stranger. None of it is done for thanks yet it is important that through these annual awards we take time to remember the mounting debt we owe all of you and to say a heartfelt “thank you”.
I wish you every enjoyment today and hope that from this evening of righteous pride you will take a renewed enthusiasm for your noble vocation as RNLI volunteers.