REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE IRISH RED CROSS PERPETUAL TROPHY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE IRISH RED CROSS PERPETUAL TROPHY FOR FIRST AID, 16 MERRION SQUARE
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá mé iontach sásta bheith anseo libh arís inniu ar an ócáid speisilta seo.
Thank you for that warm welcome and for the invitation to join you on what is a big day in the calendar of our Irish Red Cross Society. It is good to be with you again and in the company of those two great champions of this organisation, Chairman David Andrews and Secretary General Carmel Dunne.
The late Sean Ó Ríordáin in his poem Ni Ceadmhach Neamhshuim (disinterest is not permissible) says “there is not a man whose welfare is not our duty….They are all part of us because there is no place in the world in which we were not born.”
It could be a mission statement of this organization, for the Red Cross here and around the world both in its International Movement and the Red Crescent, is about the business of making the suffering of strangers our business, our responsibility. The heroism and generosity that lie at the heart of the Red Cross are not only important sources of practical help and hope to those who endure the very worst our world has to inflict, they are also important signs of contradiction in the more comfortable and complacent parts of our world. Wherever the Red Cross flag flies it is a crucial banner of hope and a relentless rallying call to action. The Red Cross is still a banner of hope for humanity.
Faced with the appalling conditions in which so many of our brothers and sisters live on our shared planet it would be easy to surrender to despair. War, famine, corruption, Aids, dire poverty, ethnic cleansing, these are the moral Everests of our time and we should be very grateful that there are those who are prepared to undertake the arduous climbs that overcoming them entails. The Red Cross has a hard earned and honoured place among those climbers for whom the risks and personal sacrifices are insignificant when compared to the satisfaction of striving to make things better for others. Here at home the Irish Red Cross has sixty-five years of voluntary first class service to its credit.
Over 100 Units across the country work tirelessly to provide humanitarian services, both at home and abroad, providing a range of rescue and relief operations in addition to a variety of broadly-based community services, including youth work and care for the sick and elderly.
It provides an outstanding emergency service and excellent first-aid and ambulance cover at large public events and in the immediate aftermath of major accidents or emergencies. The willingness of the Red Cross to undertake this support service, and the professionalism of its approach, is widely recognised and respected by the full-time emergency services and State agencies with which it works in partnership.
The Society also deserves our thanks for its delivery of high-quality courses in first-aid another important educational outreach which adds considerably to our civic emergency resources and to the public peace of mind.
The President’s First Aid Competition, the premier national Irish Red Cross first aid competition presents competitors with typical first aid problems, the sort likely to be encountered in daily life, industrial accidents, and on our roads. The standard I know was very high and while none of us ever wishes to be involved in an accident if I was unfortunate enough, I would be glad to have people of your calibre and expertise around.
Today I have a double honour because I’m not just presenting the award for one year but for 2003 and 2004. The winning teams for both years come from Dublin and are to be warmly congratulated – comhghairdeachas libh.
This year’s Dublin winning team which triumphed at Ballyfin College, Portlaoise in May can look forward to representing Ireland in the annual European Red Cross first aid competition in Slovakia next year. I know our country will be very well represented there and we all wish you every success. I congratulate all those who took part in the competition and all those who work week in and week out on behalf of this society. They look for no thanks or reward but deserve the gratitude of the nation in whose name this society carries out its work of humanitarian care. I want to particularly thank your Chairman whose voice has now become synonymous with the Red Cross and whose work has brought right into our homes the grim miserable realities of life for the world’s poor and oppressed. I am very proud to be associated with this society which has since its foundation had a unique relationship with the Presidency.
Gura fada buan sibh. Comhghairdeachas libh go léir arís. Go raibh maith agaibh.