ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE TO THE LANSDOWNE CLUB, SYDNEY
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE TO THE LANSDOWNE CLUB, SYDNEY, FRIDAY, 14 MARCH, 2003
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá mé iontach sásta go bhfuil an chaoi agam a bheith anseo libh inniu i Sydney. Mo bhuíochas libh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
Chairman,
Distinguished Guests,
My husband Martin and I are delighted to be back again in Sydney and to join you on the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day, an occasion which holds a very special place in the hearts of every Irish man and woman around the world and more than a few friends of Ireland besides. On my own behalf and on behalf of the Irish nation, it is my great pleasure to convey St. Patrick’s Day wishes to each of you and your families. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir.
I owe a debt of gratitude once again to Chairman Peter Brennan and his fellow Committee Members of the Lansdowne Club for the invitation to share this day with you in a city where to be Irish is to feel completely at home. Here a successful and thriving Irish community will showcase our love of life and fun, of music and pageantry when the St. Patrick’s Day parade takes to the streets on Sunday. Behind that celebration is a formidable Irish support network, crafted and sustained over many generations through hard times and through good times. The Landsdowne Club is part of that remarkable endeavour which stitches together the lives of random Irish men and women who have made Australia their home, forging them into a caring, working clan outreaching to one another and putting Ireland on the map in Australia and Australia on the map in Ireland.
With the help of the Lansdowne Club, the image and profile of Irish business in Australia has never been higher for this city has witnessed the emergence of a dynamic, high-profile Irish business community which mirrors the advent of considerable economic success in Ireland itself. The rapid transformation from relative poverty to considerable prosperity has sent the pundits and analysts racing to the drawing board to reimagine Ireland, for today’s Ireland is virtually unrecognisable from that of just twenty years ago. Then, the average income per head was 65% of the European Union average. Today it stands at 130%. The closed, predominantly agricultural, British market dependent business environment has metamorphosed into one of the most open global exporting economies in the world. Name any major player in the world of e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, electronics, computer technology, health care, or financial services and you can be sure they are among the 1200 foreign companies who are operating in Ireland today. They are drawn by a benign corporate tax climate, an entrepreneurial and flexible young workforce highly educated and hungry for success, a social partnership which contributes greatly to economic stability, a relish and flair for global trade and of course, access to the European Union with its huge consumer market, in which Ireland is the only English speaking member of the Eurozone. Did you ever think you would hear it said of Ireland that it was the world’s leading exporter of computer software?
Our business links with Australia are strong and two-way trade last year amounted to about 1.3 billion Australian dollars. As you will know better than most, there are many opportunities to be explored across this vast and diverse country with its gateway to the Asia-Pacific region and I am aware that many of you are successfully pursuing these business opportunities and in the process generating welcome economic links between our two countries.
Similarly, Ireland’s open and vibrant economy with its conduit to Europe offers much for Australian business and I know that the recently appointed Australian Ambassador to Ireland, former Senator John Herron, whose father was Irish born, is committed to ensuring that Australian business takes advantage of these opportunities.
Once we exported our people. Now they come back reversing centuries of outward migration and along with them come men and women from all over the world seeking in Ireland economic opportunities they could never find in their homelands. Theirs is a story we should know well and as our country widens its embrace to become a comfortable multiethnic, multi-cultural home, we look for guidance to cities like Sydney which have already gone this journey and have much to tell us about forging united happy societies out of diversity.
I remember with pride how highly our homecoming Olympic athletes spoke of this city and its welcome. One after the other they told of the wonderful kindness they met which was as strong and genuine on the last day as it was on the first. Now Ireland is set to compete with that legendary hospitality when the entire island comes together in June to host the World Special Olympics, the first time they will ever have been held outside of the United States. You have more than a fair idea of the amount of organisation such an event takes but the whole country is mobilised in a massive voluntary endeavour to make Ireland ready for the 7,000 athletes representing over 160 countries.
The response of the people of Ireland to the event has been literally incredible. They have raised over thirty million euro, trained over 30,000 volunteers, constructed a host town and host family programme across the land and lucky Australia is set to be hosted by the Orchard County - Armagh which hopefully by June will have sobered up from winning the Sam Maguire last September. The opening ceremony is set for Croke Park which of course was the scene of the largest attendance at any international match in the history of sport in Ireland when 71,000 sports fanatics, myself among them, sat through a dreadful monsoon to watch Australia beat Ireland in the Compromise Rules game. To say we loved it would be an understatement and you can be sure that between the Rugby World Cup and the Compromise Rules Series there will be an avalanche of Irish visitors to Australia this year.
We are lucky aren’t we that the long historic ties that linked a struggling Australia to a tragic Ireland have been transcended by ties of commerce, culture, trade, fun, friendship, tourism and sport between two modern, successful democracies each standing tall in the world community of nations. Our young people explore each other’s countries driven by curiosity not economic necessity. We see a landscape of great oppportunity ahead but only because we stand on the shoulders of those whose rugged hands and courageous hearts created hope out of the bits and pieces of their hard lives. On this day we gather in celebration of the greatest emigrant of them all, St. Patrick, who knew from experience the loneliness of the emigrant heart and whose life bears witness to the phenomenal capacity of one human being to beat the odds and leave an enduring legacy. We remember with gratitude those who left to us a kinship between Ireland and Australia no distance, no ocean, could ever diminish and we thank those who have taken on the sacred stewardship of that legacy in this generation as you have in the Landsdowne Club.
It has been an honour for Martin and I to join with you to mark Saint Patrick’s Day. We look forward to hearing of your continuing progress over the coming years, and hopefully of seeing you in Ireland whether its for business or pleasure. You can be assured of a Céad Míle Fáilte or One Hundred Thousand Welcomes.
Go raibh maith agaibh. Thank you.