REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT WOMEN’S NETWORKS FORUM ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN, THURSDAY, 20TH JANUARY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT WOMEN’S NETWORKS FORUM ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN, THURSDAY, 20TH JANUARY, 2005
Dia dhíbh a chairde agus fáilte go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
I am delighted to welcome you all to the Áras this afternoon. We have celebrated community here and good citizenship too but never in the way we are doing today and intend to keep on doing for the next seven years.
One thing a President gets to see week in and week out is the quietly effective work that is done by all sorts of informal groups and organisations, work that is often completely voluntary, that is life-enhancing and life-sustaining, that is problem-solving and hope-generating. Often the work goes unrecognised for it is not done for thanks but it is done because someone has to move beyond complaining about the way things are and start the job of reshaping the future. Women’s groups have been pivotal to the healthy changes wrought in our country these past couple of very heady decades. Today is about bringing together some of those women’s groups who exemplify, whether at national or community level, the very best practice in practical citizenship.
Not everyone even cares enough to complain or to imagine how things could be better. Not everyone who complains cares enough to get involved. But then there are people like you who see how things could be and should be and who don’t wait for someone else to deliver. You get up, get out, get organised and shift things. You each have unique resources of ideas and experience which have already been put to great use in your own organisations but which might well be of help to a wider audience.
We are fortunate and grateful to have had the chance to share your insights and perspectives on so many different issues from education to disability, refugees and migrant rights, carers, childminding, traveller issues, empowerment of women and violence against women. Each one of us here, I am sure, would say that out of this shared session our own understanding has been widened and deepened and hopefully we can take away new ideas and fresh thinking as we help to join the dots in our communities and in our country.
None of us has all the answers but each of us has our own special piece of the jigsaw puzzle of life and when we work together the picture gets a whole lot clearer. We are lucky to be living through times when the barriers between the various sectors are lowering, when effective partnerships are growing between the voluntary, state, professional and community sectors. Information and resources that used to get stuck now move more freely and this session is designed to keep the information and experience flow also on the move, for good practice shared is good practice doubled.
Your work makes individuals, families and communities stronger. It is a huge investment in our society and it deserves respect, thanks and recognition, all of which I am delighted to offer today on my own behalf and on behalf of all those whose lives you have touched and enriched and enhanced. Thank you again for coming here to share your experience with us. I hope that new ideas, new networks and new friendships may evolve which will help you and energise your future work.
I thank Anastasia Crickley for chairing today’s proceedings, our MC and my advisor Maura Grant and the wonderfully talented Teadaí for entertaining us this afternoon. I would also like to thank the Áras team who have worked hard to make today come together and I hope enjoyable and rewarding for everyone attending and our friends from Civil Defence for their expert assistance.
Is iontach an obair ata ar siúl agaibh. Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.