REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE WOMEN IN BUSINESS NORTHERN IRELAND LUNCHEON
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE WOMEN IN BUSINESS NORTHERN IRELAND LUNCHEON "THE CHANGING NATURE OF OUR SOCIETY..."
Good afternoon, and thank you for your very warm welcome. A special thank you for the invitation to be here, to my former student Angela Brady, Director of Women in Business.
Angela and I represent very different generations of women and a snapshot of the changes in the relatively short years that separate us is very telling, particularly for women. When I started law at the end of the 1960s in Queen’s, not only were women a tiny minority among law students and within the university generally but one of the main law texts which we studied told us emphatically that there was no place in the law for women unless we were on the hunt for suitable husbands. Otherwise we were wasting our time - our voices didn’t carry in court like men’s did, so that ruled out being barristers and clients distrusted us, so that ruled out being solicitors. When I was called to the Bar in 1974 there were no women practising at the Northern Ireland bar and ironically, on our call day, we were each presented by the then Lord Chief Justice with a hard bound copy of the text book in question. So much for an encouraging start! But we were a stubborn lot and so to Angela’s generation when more than half the students in law school were women, reflecting the massive uptake by women of the liberation offered to them through education. Today there are any amount of female solicitors, barristers and even a few judges.
We have come a long way from the days of those paralysing and infuriating words “You can’t, because you are a woman!” We will never know the colossal extent of the waste of talent those words and that mentality deprived our world of, but we are beginning to see just what happens when that talent literally goes to work, when women take their place as equals in every sphere of civic life. One of the very best places in the world to see what happens when the old barriers of gender bias come down is Ireland where, underpinning the economic success story, is also the story of women, women who have taken advantage of education.
Over 60 percent of all women are now working outside the home, a massive change from two decades ago. Since they arrived in the workplace, a once poor and underachieving society has, in barely one generation, turned the tide of history. The huge problems which once beset it have one by one been transcended - a century and a half of outward migration has been replaced with net inward migration from around the world. Those who come to Ireland’s shores seeking opportunity are themselves highly educated, talented individuals whose hunger for success and whose cultural variety have infused society with a radical new energy.
Once-endemic high unemployment has given way to virtually full employment. An unindustrialised, low-grade, agricultural economy has given way to a sophisticated high-tech globalised economy which has made Ireland a world leader in the second industrial revolution. Inward investors have made a formidable contribution to these changed times, attracted by low corporation tax, the industrial stability produced by Ireland’s successful model of social partnership and its flexible, talented workforce. But among the most remarkable aspects of the story so far has been the growth of a new indigenous entrepreneurial sector, in which women are playing a key and growing role.
The new chapter in the economic history of Ireland is complemented by the new and exciting chapter in political development. For the first time, those who share this island have the opportunity to live their lives in a context of radically altered and opportunity-laden relationships. Peace and devolved government have come to Northern Ireland presaging an era to come in which the talents of all citizens will reveal what this place is capable of when it is freed from the vanities of history. The inter-communal conflict so wasteful of that talent is on the wane and increasingly people see that the prosperity of one is intrinsically linked to the prosperity of all. North-South relations are set on a course of good neighbourliness and partnership which is creating opportunities for strategic economic relationships, on the island, within Europe and globally. Dublin-Westminster relations have never been better and our common membership of the European Union brings home to us how much we have invested in one another’s future.
The future of this island is a story in which the entrepreneur will play a leading, dynamic and pivotal role. Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial imagination and risk-taking are the major drivers of our economy, our competitiveness and our economic growth. There is no day when their work is done and the job just does itself. Commerce by its very nature and its insatiable appetite, needs new brains, new ideas, new people. The global economy, once a sleeping giant, is now well awake and on the move. If ever there was a moment in time when women could come fully into their own then this is it. This is where ambition and opportunity have converged, in this moment where we really do need Ireland North and South to be flying on two wings.
Across the island of Ireland, there is a growing recognition of the truth in the saying, “What got you here won’t get you there”. Economic development, so heavily reliant upon FDI, has distinct limits and part of the solution lies in innovative, domestic entrepreneurial firms. That means male and female entrepreneurs. The sphere of female entrepreneurship is of recent origin. It came late into the world of business thanks to those bad old days of “You can’t because you are a woman”. It is still suffering because the shape of the business world, the working world, has not yet fully adapted to the particular needs of women and needs of families which are, for the time being, generally articulated by women. But this is undoubtedly the sector with the greatest potential.
So for women with entrepreneurial ambitions, now is the time. Governments and their agencies on both sides of the border are actively working to support and encourage business leadership and in particular the leadership of women. There is invaluable support too from organisations like Women in Business and it is needed, for along with the many rewards of business it can be very tough, pressurised and competitive.
There is a legacy of old obstacles and ill-fitting structures to be overcome but not for nothing did Seamus Heaney describe this generation as having “...intelligences brightened and unmannerly as crowbars”!
There is still some heavy lifting to be done but there is now a momentum which will shortly see legions of successful women serving both as the engine of our economy, and as role models to young female entrepreneurs, when the once-overlooked genius of women shows its daring, its creativity, its innovation and its courage in a swathe of new businesses that will bring pride and prosperity to a re-imagined island of Ireland. I commend each of you most highly for the work you do in your own businesses, and for your role in securing an egalitarian, innovative and inclusive future for all of us.