REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF A NEW EXTENSION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF A NEW EXTENSION FOR ST. CATHERINE’S COMMUNITY SERVICES
Is cúis mhór áthas dom bheith anseo libh inniu ag an ocáid spesialta seo. Tá mé buíoch díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
It gives me great pleasure to be here in Carlow and to have the opportunity to join you in celebrating this special day. I would like to thank Louise Graham for the kind invitation to perform the official opening of this refurbished centre which is a very visible, outward sign of a caring and committed community.
Since coming into Office almost five years ago now, I have met many of those remarkable, decent, generous, kind-hearted people who day in, day out, year in, year out, quietly give their time, energy and giftedness to helping others. I speak of course of that wonderful legion of volunteers who are to be found in every corner of this island and here today in Carlow is no exception.
In Ireland, more than almost anywhere else, we know the importance and the value of voluntary work. We know how it sustained us in harsher times, how that spirit of neighbour helping neighbour helped many a family in need to keep its head above water, how it kept people hoping in the future and in each other.
Today we are privileged to have come to know times of unprecedented prosperity. Never before have we been so confident as a nation, never before have we had such reason for celebration. We have seen the tide of emigration turn, the spectre of unemployment fade, the recognition of Ireland as a great success story and the emergence of peace in Northern Ireland.
But now, more than ever before, we need strong communities with a flourishing civic spirit and for that we need an energetic core of volunteers who see at first hand the needs of their neighbours and who set about meeting them. They are the people who run youth clubs, senior citizens centres, sports teams, respite care facilities, services for those with disability, who raise the funds, who get on with the job of making life as enjoyable as possible for as many people as possible. They are the people with their ears closely tuned to their area and they are the people who put love, generosity, compassion, decency and care right at the heart of daily life. It is our volunteers who reassure us about human nature, who give confidence to communities and empower them to cope with life’s ups and downs as well as making good use of life’s opportunities.
Some time ago, I had the pleasure of opening a Drop In Guidance Centre for Kildare VEC. Words said by someone who had been helped there stuck with me and strike me as words as easily fitting to St. Catherine’s now. That person said:
“You took me in,
patched me up
and gave me the confidence to be who I am”.
What greater gift to give someone than the confidence to strive to reach his or her full potential. Here at St. Catherine’s you are doing that every day.
One of the greatest blessings we can have bestowed on us is a sense of personal empowerment – the confidence to choose our own pathway through life – not a route pre-ordained by society or circumstance. What you do so well here is to support people along the journey into themselves, helping them to unlock their own strengths, to grow in faith in their own potential. There are few things as sad to encounter as lives only half-lived through under-achievement and there are too many people living in that world that seems to be one big cul-de-sac. Each person in that world is a huge loss to him or herself, to their community and ultimately to our country. Each person helped to become strong, skilled, confident and achieving is a person who builds us up as community and as a society. Your work here helps to prevent the tragic waste of human potential and you are entitled to the thanks not just of those you work for directly but the thanks of all of us who love to see our people strong and our country too. Your Mission Statement puts it well ‘our mission is to provide services, responsive to need, with respect for equality and justice, to empower and enrich individuals, families and communities ….’
This centre is a credit to the generosity of the people of Carlow and their care for each other. It took a lot of courage to set about the fundraising and the planning involved in the refurbishment. Those who did it could just as easily have sat at home watching television and there would have been no word of criticism for the volunteer is just that, a person who decides that despite all the easy, comfortable self-indulgent things he or she could do, there is much more to be gained from giving to others and from serving the community. Volunteers should never be taken for granted and when you have as good a team as you have here and such a supportive community you are entitled to take pride in their achievements. We do that in a special way here today.
I congratulate everyone involved in making this place the success it is, and will surely continue to be. I hope that through this place you will see your community grow stronger year by year and its culture of volunteering handed on from generation to generation like the precious gift that it is.
Go raibh maith agaibh.