Address by President McAleese to Lisburn Chamber of Commerce FRIDAY, 7 April 2000
Address by President McAleese to Lisburn Chamber of Commerce FRIDAY, 7 April 2000
President Knox and members of Lisburn Chamber of Commerce,
Thank you for your warm welcome and your kind invitation to Lisburn.
Just a year ago I had the pleasure of visiting Lisburn’s award-winning Irish Linen Centre Museum. It was a very special day for me, a journey back to my own childhood days lived in the shadow of Belfast’s linen mills and an opportunity to share Lisburn’s righteous and palpable sense of history and pride in its rich cultural heritage, a heritage which forms such an important part of Ulster’s story and this island’s story.
You will be glad to learn that since that visit, links between Áras an Uachtaráin, the President’s official residence in Dublin and Lisburn have grown even stronger. A couple of months ago a very fine Donegal wool carpet was delivered to the State Rooms and I was delighted to learn that it was manufactured in Killybegs on a pure linen warp made in Lisburn and a woollen weft made in Cork. Need I say any more about North/South economic co-operation or about the remarkable power of partnership.
Lisburn’s town crest features both the sprigs of the flax plant and the weaver’s shuttle, itself a subtle reminder of the genius which can flow from a harmonious balance of nature and industry. The flax plant remains a plant without the imagination and skill of the weaver. The weaver would never have found his or her destiny without the flax plant, without getting to know that plant, without seeing beyond its simple but passing beauty to its amazing possibilities in the world of textiles.
The challenge we face on the island of Ireland today is to have the imagination to think differently about each other, North and South, to see in each other and in respectful partnership with each other, the kind of opportunities, the kind of well-spring of creative energy, once found when weaver and flax plant transformed each other
For centuries men and women from every corner of this island have ventured to distant shores and made strong and vibrant contributions to their new communities, adding a richer texture, a new dimension, to their adopted homelands. How sad, then, that here at home we have for far too long been less adventurous, less open to the creative synergies and harmonies that our own rich mix of cultures has the potential to generate. We have a huge untapped resource in each other, a resource which the structures set up by the Good Friday Agreement have the potential to exploit, creating a fresh dynamic, bringing a deep-rooted peace, a sure prosperity to all the people who share this island home.
Between December and February we had a glimpse of that potential, as all of the interwoven institutions of the Good Friday Agreement sprang to life and assumed their important functions. All around the world people wished us well and spurred us on to the fulfilment of this historic new dispensation. And here too people of hope, put aside their doubts, their fears, their woundedness and took a chance on each other, roundly endorsing the new vision for the future. I know that Lisburn Borough Council co-sponsors the “Making a Difference Award” which has been awarded to Senator George Mitchell for his work in bringing the Agreement to fruition. His was a crucial contribution, which was emblematic of the global interest in and wish for a better future for the people of Ireland North and South. With the help of our friends and with the courage and grace of politicians and people we have already come a long, long journey.
Yet, I am acutely conscious that as we meet here this evening there are still serious difficulties to be overcome, there is still a distance to travel before we arrive at the point where we realise we are no longer travelling as reserved and cautious strangers but as familiar and trusted friends. Once again we need to dip deeply into our reservoirs of political generosity and imagination, if trust and confidence are to be built, developed and sustained. It has taken considerable courage and effort on all sides to bring us this far and having come this far it is imperative that we have faith and hope in our ability to see this journey through.
I will be in Stormont tomorrow, where the fledgling Northern Assembly has sat and we fervently hope will soon sit again. Like Lisburn, the new Assembly adopted the flax flower as its emblem. For me this graceful and non-partisan emblem, resonates with the potential which the new structures so ably demonstrated in their short existence: the potential for creative harmony when all work together for the good of all.
In terms of harnessing and enhancing our combined economic potential, the early work of the Ministers, the departments, the North/South Ministerial Council and of the six Implementation Bodies has been of great significance and great promise.
As a business organisation, you are, I am sure, particularly interested in the potential of the new Trade and Business Development Body, headquartered in Newry on the Belfast-Dublin economic corridor. Encouragingly, business leaders in both parts of Ireland were among the first to welcome the establishment of the new Trade and Business Body, and indeed all of the institutions under the Good Friday Agreement. And it is hardly surprising that people with business insight and ambition to grow business opportunities should be so clear-sighted about where future opportunities lie. The trade statistics between both parts of this island tell a story of past neglect but also a story of future opportunity. Of all land borders inside the European Union, the land border here is the one with the least commercial traffic across it. Exports from Northern Ireland to the South account for just 9% of the North’s total manufacturing exports while exports from the South to the North account for a mere 1.2% of its total manufacturing exports. These figures challenge us to stop letting the skewed politics of the past get in the way of creating prosperity. There has been a tendency to work back to back - now it is time to work face to face, hand in hand. In every aspect of our economic development, North/South co-operation creates potential for important synergies, for pooling resources and sharing expertise, for getting the very best value out of our respective strengths. Through partnership, we can enhance the commercial dynamism on both sides of the border. We can do it without threat to anyone’s identity, or anyone’s political ambitions or opinions and without any fear that a partisan political agenda is being pursued - that was and is the promise, the solemn covenant of the Good Friday Agreement.
A couple of years ago scientists in the field of genetics in Dublin announced the discovery of a gene associated with a rare and cruel childhood illness. They had devoted over a quarter of a century to their research and were rightly delighted at this important breakthrough, but it was how they made the breakthrough rather than the discovery itself which I found most reassuring and challenging. The director of the research told how his team of scientists was only one of many working across the globe in an effort to find this elusive gene. Naturally each team wanted to be the first to make the discovery. They worked in competition not collaboration with each other. His team had made important links which they were at pains to conceal from the other teams in case it would give them the edge. One day, he said it hit him that every other team was doing the very same, hiding from each other the important links they had been able to make. Suddenly he said he realised that what was truly important was simply to find the gene, not to be the first to find it and that the insistence on being first was getting in the way of the central work itself. He suggested to the other teams that they should all collaborate, pool their knowledge and see if between them they could fill out the blanks in the jig-saw puzzle. The others agreed. The body of information and wisdom each had was shared and as it tumbled out, the gaps in the jigsaw puzzle suddenly filled in and a whole new era of scientific endeavour and hope opened up in front of them.
The continuing political stalemate clearly raises profound questions about the future of all the institutions and about that great adventure we were just on the point of starting. I know that there is a shared and deep desire to work to restore them as soon as is possible. As an antidote to the counsel of despair, as a barrier against cynicism and ‘giveuppery’ we need to congratulate ourselves on all sides on the distance we have already travelled and keep our eyes firmly fixed on the future we know we are capable of creating. We seek a future where justice, equality, respect for difference, tolerance, reconciliation, form the building blocks out of which we will craft two neighbouring economies working fluently together to maximise the human and natural resources God has blessed this island with.
In these difficult days it is essential that we have team leaders, visionaries, people like the members of this Chamber of Commerce. You have not been waiting for opportunity to come and meet you, you have gone out long since in search of opportunity. As an active and supportive member of the innovative North/South organisation, Chamberlink, a joint venture between the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, you have been immersed in the Chamberlink mission to promote economic development and cross-border business co-operation through a stronger Chamber of Commerce Network.
Chamberlink is to be congratulated for extending the range of linkages between the member chambers in Northern Ireland and the border counties and for providing a source of information and a platform for co-operation between the two associations of Chambers of Commerce.
Ireland was fortunate enough to enter this new Millennium with reason to believe in a future of lasting peace and prosperity unique in our history, a peace and prosperity shared by nationalists and unionists, North and South. Over the years business men and women have provided courageous and visionary leadership in pointing to the economic price of conflict and instability and in urging a generous and pragmatic approach to reconciliation. They have long insisted that what we can achieve alone pales in comparison to what we can achieve by working together.
This is one of the many reasons why we must continue to work together to ensure that the hard-earned opportunities for all us which are presented in the Agreement are not squandered. Lisburn’s economic strategy is very aptly called “prosperity in our hands”. If you will permit me, I would go further and extend this to suggest that peace, reconciliation and prosperity, these things are all in our hands. Some people drop them frightened by the weight of responsibility, or unaware of their historic value and of the difference that just one person of courage can make. The time is ripe for business leaders to once again assert their grip and to play a lead role in focusing debate on what is important to this and future generations. And what they want is so simple. They want to be treated as the equal of the next person. They want to be able to live, work and prosper in a place where each person counts, each person matters, and where the identity, the beliefs, the values of each person has space, has respect. And they want jobs, good jobs that pay a fair wage. They want decent homes, good education, good healthcare. They want to be part of a sophisticated civic society, a peaceful society, at peace with itself and with its neighbours. Such modest things to want and yet they have eluded so many previous generations, but not this one. This one has the power to change the script, to be the generation venerated by history as the generation which took this fragile plant of peace, saw its remarkable possibilities and with the skills of the linen weaver turned it into a story of success, a story to take pride in.