Media Library

Speech at the Unveiling of the ‘Footsteps’ Statues, in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania

In Hobart today, in Tasmania, Sculptor Rowan Gillespie thanked President Higgins for attending the unveiling of "Footsteps".

The four bronze sculptures commemorate the convict women and their children who arrived in Van Diemen’s Land and disembarked on the Hobart waterfront.

Around 14,000 Irish convicts, both men and women, were transported to Van Diemen's Land. The majority of these arrived after 1840 in the lead-up and during the Great Famine.

In his speech at the unveiling ceremony, President Higgins said they were "victims of a harsh judicial system that valued property above people’s lives."

Keynote speech at the University of Melbourne

President Higgins delivered a keynote speech at the University of Melbourne, entitled "The Economic Debate - The Australian/Irish Dimensions."

In his speech, the President outlined the history of economic theory and academic thought, and made the case for a re-introduction of moral and ethical considerations in economic decision-making, and a re-assertion of ‘the common good’ as an important value, to counter the effects of the assumed spirit of selfishness and perfect market competition that underpins much contemporary economic discourse.

The President also warned of the effects of fracturing social cohesion, “as our societies become increasingly divided between what one refers to as ‘the lucky’ and ‘the left out’, arguing for greater emphasis on education for “fiscal and economic literacy”, which the President argues “may be as import to cohesion, citizenship and democracy itself, as mass literacy was in previous centuries to universal suffrage, parliamentary democracy and the sovereignty of the people.”

Address at an Enterprise Ireland event for business leaders