REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN FRIDAY, 17 JANUARY, 2003
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN FRIDAY, 17 JANUARY, 2003.
A Oirircis, A Oirirceasa is a Uaisle Uile,
Cuireann sé áthas orm agus ar m’fhear céile, Martín, fáilte ó chroí a chur romhaibh go léir go hÁras an Uachtaráin. Tá mé an-bhuíoch as na beannachtaí a chur sibh orainn agus ar mhuintir na hÉireann uilig. Tá súil agam go mbeidh athbhliain faoi mhaise agaibh agus gúim sonas, sláinte agus buansíocháin oraibh go léir.
Your Excellency, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Girls and Boys.
I wish to thank you for the kind greetings and good wishes you have offered to Martin and I and through us to the people of Ireland. I am delighted to welcome you and your families to Áras an Uachtaráin and I wish for each of you, and the citizens of your countries what I wish for the people of Ireland, a year of peace, of opportunities that offer hope and bring prosperity, and a year free from the kind of oppressive, pervasive fears that disturb our enjoyment of life.
There is quite a gap between the virtuous and decent things that the human heart longs for and the often harsh reality in which we live. At the start of a year already so absorbed by talk of war we are reminded of the hugely important role you play along with political leaders across the world, in navigating and reconciling all the hurts, vanities, misapprehensions, hatreds, ambitions, conflicts and neglects which bring chaos and misery to our global family. We sincerely hope at this time that Iraq will comply fully with the terms of UN Resolution 1441 and that the mounting threat of war will soon dissolve. We look forward to the day when we will see an Iraq free from sanctions and fully participating in international life.
At this heartbreakingly dangerous time you carry particularly heavy burdens of responsibility. Your words, your handshakes can break down so many barriers. Your patient, painstaking work, undertaken often quietly and almost invisibly, has the capacity to replace ignorance and enmity with understanding and friendship. The international community has little comprehension of its indebtedness to you and your colleagues around the world for the role you play in sustaining the international checks and balances which keep our world moving, however unevenly and unsteadily, in the direction of world peace and prosperity for all - the only direction worthy of our endeavour. So we gather today in thanks for what you do and in solidarity with the extraordinary efforts you are making to bring harmony, partnership and mutual respect to the relationships between nations and peoples.
We thank you especially for your commitment to Ireland and to our people, for the way in which you bring our story to your own people and your story to Ireland. The relationships you establish, develop and sustain are a vital investment in that better future we all look forward to. Over the year, new ambassadors and their families have arrived and we offer them a warm special welcome here today and hope their time in Ireland will be fruitful and happy. Some ambassadors have left for retirement or new postings and others like Sir Ivor and Lady Elizabeth Roberts are facing that upheaval soon. We are sorry to lose such good friends, great company and average golfers!!! But it is also a source of reassurance that you take with you wherever you go a deep knowledge and hopefully a love of Ireland which we can only benefit from and which we hope will bring you back again often in the future. At times of arrival and departure for ambassadors, the disruption and pressures on ambassadorial families become all the more sharply highlighted. I thank the spouses, partners and children whose acceptance of this unique way of life with its huge demands on each of them, makes it possible to have a cohort of professional men and women who are committed to introducing the nations and peoples of the world to each other and keeping open the lines of communication between them.
With so many conflicts still causing the scandal of wasted lives and wasted resources on an appalling human scale, the work of peacemakers and prosperity builders demands even more commitment and courage than a year ago.
One of the most important vehicles of communication and mediation between nations is of course the United Nations and with your support Ireland was afforded the opportunity to serve for the past two years on the United Nations Security Council. There, the voice of our small country enunciated our commitment to the intrinsic value of multilateralism, the primacy of the United Nations, to peacekeeping, disarmament, human rights and development cooperation. Our term there has ended but we continue to offer our support and encouragement to all those who are undertaking that most difficult and elusive work of building peace and tackling endemic poverty. In particular we long to see an honourable and speedy settlement in the Middle East knowing that the ramifications of that conflict extend far beyond its own narrow confines. Ireland will continue to support the work of the Quartet in its efforts to reach a settlement based on the concept of two states living side by side, within secure and internationally recognised borders.
The European Union continues to bear powerful witness to an alternative vision for humanity based on partnership and collaboration even among the most bitter of old enemies. We are on the threshold of welcoming ten new members to the Union table, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The successful conclusion of the enlargement negotiations marks a huge achievement for both the applicant countries concerned and the European Union itself. It marks too an exciting new chapter in European history as we consign the Cold War divisions to memory. We in Ireland look forward to welcoming these new Member States during our next Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2004. We look forward too, to the accession of both Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union, and to the opening of negotiations with Turkey in due course.
One of the lovely aspects of being President is the opportunity to make links between Ireland and other parts of the world. I was privileged to make Ireland’s first State visits to Greece and to Malaysia last year and to make a State visit to Portugal so beloved by Irish tourists. Along with visits to Thailand and Egypt these gave me crucial opportunities to build on the great goodwill that exists towards Ireland and to strengthen bilateral relationships in places where increased East-West dialogue and cooperation is so needed and so important especially at this time.
For poignancy it would be hard to equal my two visits last year to the United States. The first was to New York for the annual St Patrick’s Day Parade so dominated by police and fire officers. The haunting memory of 9/11 hung over those celebrations just as on my second visit, the bitter memory of poverty and hunger hung over the magnificent and moving Irish Famine Memorial, in Battery Park, a half acre of County Mayo set in down town New York to remind us of the wanton suffering of our ancestors and the continuing scandal of famine in so many parts of the developing world. It also issues a powerful challenge to a successful and rich generation to remember who it was that dug the well they now drink from and to never forget the hungry children of the world for they badly need champions.
We have been blessed in Ireland to have many champions of peace whose combined efforts at home and abroad produced the Good Friday Agreement nearly five years ago. Clearly there are significant challenges in the process at the moment but the extensive progress already made, allied to the constructive mood of both people and politicians, gives us real hope that the promise of the Good Friday Agreement can be fulfilled.
In the coming months, the two Governments and the parties will seek to make 2003 the year when the Good Friday Agreement makes the crucial shift from implementation to consolidation. We are grateful for your ongoing interest in the peace process and for the many ways in which you have given it your support.
I have been fortunate on my trips abroad to hear many people say how much they admire Ireland’s economic success and what an example we are to other nations emerging from generations of stagnation and underachievement and looking forward to better days ahead. It is good to be seen as a place where peace and widespread prosperity are high on the agenda and where a relentless commitment to both is changing Ireland’s history so profoundly. I regard myself as very blessed to represent my country through these times which, for all their ups and downs, are the envy of so many and the unfulfilled dream of the vast majority of those who share this planet with us. I hope you enjoy this changing Ireland and find it a place of warmth and welcome to you and your colleagues and families.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Guím rath agus sonas oraibh go léir.
I would now like to propose a toast -
TO THE HEADS OF STATE HERE REPRESENTED.