PHILIP MONAHAN MEMORIAL LECTURE DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK
PHILIP MONAHAN MEMORIAL LECTURE DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK, WEDNESDAY, 4TH FEBRUARY, 2004
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá an-áthas bheith anseo libh i gCathair Corcaigh tráthnóna. Míle buíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an bhfáilte a thug sibh dom.
Good evening everyone.
It is always a pleasure to be in our southern capital or as is often quipped ‘the real capital’. I wish to thank Professor Wrixon for inviting me to deliver the Sixth Annual Philip Monahan Memorial Lecture. I note that one of my predecessors was my friend John Hume and the week after his lecture he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In the week after Francesco Ruttelli’s lecture he announced his candidacy for the premiership of Italy. I can’t think of any way to follow those precedents . . .
Today I want to consider some issues which are facing Ireland. These are issues which may not be so urgent that they require drastic immediate action but they demand attention for their importance nevertheless.
It is not long ago since Ireland was regarded as an under-developed country, perhaps as one of the better off Third World countries, but lagging far behind our First World counterparts. Through hard work, determination, more than a modicum of pragmatism and some considerable sacrifices, we have experienced a total transformation in our economic fortunes and become a first world country but with a third-world memory.
That achievement is remarkable and we should take pride and celebrate our good fortune but we are also aware that more than our economic fortunes have changed greatly in recent times. Many other aspects of life on our island have changed beyond imagination and beyond recognition and so too have expectations. In many respects the extent of that change is so multi-faceted that it is very difficult to capture its depth and in any event its complexity is something I could not possibly hope to do justice to in the time available to me this afternoon, unless that is that you’re not in a hurry home!
However, at the macro level, looking back thirty or forty years, there were perhaps indications that certain fundamental changes were already underway. The lessening of the civil war as the basis for political affiliation was perhaps inevitable but with it appears to have come decreased participation in the democratic process. The animosities and hatred of old divisions did no doubt have the effect of bringing people into participation in public affairs. When those animosities decline so too can the visceral urge that can lead new people to take up public positions and engage in public debate. The most serious manifestation of that disengagement perhaps is the steady decline in voting. People now are less likely to vote, to join a party, to be politically active, or to even register for voting – a fact that would serve to confuse and maybe even horrify previous generations.
Commentators opine that when people disengage from the cogs of the democratic system they slowly cease to recognise the importance of the state and the part that it plays in their lives to such an extent that democratic institutions begin to appear irrelevant and as a consequence we see now an entire generation that is moving away from political involvement both here at home and even to a greater extent in the European context. Substantial efforts are being made to address that disconnect with the European Union across the member states – the success of which has yet to be determined and no doubt will become apparent in time. Whether in the European or National political theatres what is often offered as a primary reason for that disconnect is the decreasing identification of a common cause between the individual and public representatives.
There is also disengagement at another level, the decreasing participation in communal and in voluntary organisations. It may well be that since many more people now have jobs, they work so hard that they do not have the time, or the energy, to take on extra tasks outside working hours. There are issues to do with risk with accountability and liability which are highlighted today as never before. Whatever the cause or causes, there is a price to be paid in the weakening of civic solidarity and simple human well-being. There is also a price to be paid in the vacuum which quickly fills with cynicism. To get some idea of the way in which we gain individually and collectively from a vibrant culture of volunteering we only have to look at the phenomenal success of the GAA and the spectacular showcase created by the Special Olympics World Games last summer. Take them away and our social and psychological landscape becomes colourless, add them in and life takes on significantly a greater capacity for fun, fulfilment, for achievement, opportunity and the body of healthy shared memories every community needs to make it more than a random collection of self-interested individuals.
Each person nowadays fulfils many roles from worker to consumer, citizen, local resident, parent etc., each role with its own set of issues and increasingly its own organisation to articulate those issues. In the past people joined organisations which had the purpose of bringing those in a locality together. At its most general, they came together to form the State. Unfashionable as it may be to say so, Tom Kettle had a point when he said that
“. . .the State is the name by which we call the great human conspiracy against hunger and cold, against loneliness and ignorance; the State is the foster-mother and warden of the arts, of love, of comradeship, of all that redeems from despair that strange adventure which we call human life.”
The State doesn’t run itself or decide its own values. Its shape is not immutable, its conscience not closed. It is driven by the intellectual, moral and political energy of the people. It is a worthy feature of our democracy that more voices are heard and listened to than ever before in our history. It is a particular source of pride that groups previously overlooked or ignored are increasingly finding their way onto centre stage for this republic has an ambition, not yet fully realised to attain “true social order” and assure “the dignity and freedom of the individual”. Many deliberately and cruelly overlooked generations have invested their tough lives in this Republic. Organisation was the weapon they used to cut through all the obstacles stacked against them, to clear the landscape on which we were free to build. Now is not a good time to settle into comfortable individualism and forget our need of each other, our responsibility to each other and to the development of a safe, effective, fully inclusive civic society.
Society is a human construct, a human endeavour. It doesn’t happen by accident and its health is directly related to the degree of effort put in by individual citizens. It is an effort that we can adopt a relatively minimal approach to without reproach, paying our taxes, going out to vote, driving within the speed limit, buying the occasional raffle ticket and doing no-one a bad turn but it is also an effort that generously rewards a more active citizenship, a lively engagement with society in all its complexity.
As President I get to be at a lot of openings, or days of community celebration around the country and by far the most dynamic and successful communities are those with determined leadership, strong community support and with an openness to broad-spectrum partnerships across the voluntary and state sector. Day in and day out in this country they are changing the lived lives of the elderly, the young, the poor, the homeless, the excluded, the intellectually disabled, the physically disabled, those suffering from mental ill-health, vulnerable children, dysfunctional families, drug and drink addicts, the bereaved, the battered, the suicidal, the sick, the terminally ill - reaching out the caring hand that makes another human being’s otherwise hard life, worth living.
The “doers” don’t ask everyone to do what they do but they need us to care that they do it and to do what we can to make sure that the line of care is not interrupted or ended by disinterest or neglect or because we are too busy. Without a vibrant community and voluntary sector we would soon experience levels of loneliness and social dysfunction to wipe away the smiles of satisfaction at our economic successes. With a widespread civic outreach, with an active citizenship, we have the capacity to match that remarkable economic success with an Ireland on top of its most endemic and intractable social problems. In a world which increasingly offers us a level of comfortable self-indulgent choice, the most crucial choice we are called to make is between selfish individualism and a willingness to shoulder the often uncomfortable burden of wider social responsibilities. Ironically the latter can be argued as the best choice for both altruistic reasons and self-interest. Some day we may be the elderly person with nothing to look at but the four walls. This could be the day when we meet the kid who didn’t go to the homework club, who left school at twelve, who drifted into drugs, who needs a fix and needs your money no matter what violence he has to use to get it. Every person helped to become a strong, confident law-abiding citizen is one less to worry about, one stronger link in the chain that is community.
What is true of the voluntary and community sector is just as true of the political sector. Judging by the amount of opinion polls, talk shows, newspaper headlines, single issue campaigns, lobby groups and campaigns there are many things in the world of politics which exercise us greatly but they do not seem to lead into sustained political participation. Where two or more are gathered it is not difficult to find passionate views on politics and indeed politicians but while earlier generations saw themselves as having a duty to vote or to participate actively in politics the language of duty leaves a new generation unmoved. Yet indignation that is given vent to on the sofa could be so much more powerful if it was given vent to in a powerful debating chamber. If the discoverer of the electric light had kept his knowledge to himself how much longer would we all have been kept in the dark.
But, we plead in self-defence that it seems as if most of what we do is governed by global forces beyond anyone’s control, or by far-off forces in Europe, remote from nation, remote from us. Even if that were entirely true, doesn’t our silence, our passivity simply assist the process of growing remoteness? Isn’t history littered with examples of individuals or communities whose courageous voices made the human person once again the centre of gravity even when the forces ranged against them seemed overwhelming. Ireland has its own honoured names among them. We need more such champions to generate and regenerate the communal solidarity which stamps our relevance on the world and makes us impossible to ignore in this rapidly globalising world.
When Jean Monnet was persuading the great powers of Europe to found the EEC, “It was”, he said in 1953, “the first time in history that a great power, instead of basing its policy on ruling by dividing, has consistently and resolutely backed the creation of a large Community uniting peoples previously apart”.
That is what we must do too on our smaller, local stage for the evidence is in that crude individualism makes us all vulnerable - sophisticated, equal partnership makes us all strong.
Members of the generation coming to maturity in the first decades of this new century are extraordinarily well educated, well travelled, and shaped by an inheritance of relative prosperity and freedom. Their security and confidence has allowed them to move away from the older habits of respect for authority and tradition, for duty and selfless sacrifice. Buried inside those things were frailties of unearned deference, of protectionism, of clientelism, of gender and class bias, rightly despised by a more egalitarian generation. But buried inside them too were humanly good values, designed to stretch and test the human person, to make them better, more giving, more caring, more self-consciously socially and politically responsible. Allied now to the language of equal opportunities, of social inclusion, of environmental responsibility these values of duty and service, renewed and updated, internalised and lived, have the capacity to take us closer to “the true social order” our Constitution proclaims as its objective.
I have great faith in our young people. I meet them every day in schools, universities, clubs, the President’s Awards, the sports field, the Youth Parliament, any one of the places where they display their energy and commitment, their talent and their potential. Somewhere in the clamour of cynicism they need to hear voices that inspire them to believe in their own capacity to change things and challenge them to take on the baton of greater civic participation and in particular of political and community work. Their enthusiasm is a precious resource. Waste it and we mortgage our future and theirs. Use it well and they will shape an Ireland to be proud of - an Ireland to make someone like Philip Monahan proud.
Philip Monahan whom we honour here today, brought to his work in local government an unimpeachable civic commitment and a determination to reach a consensus on what to do through an ability to interpret and influence public opinion. He knew of course that while local government must be government of local people, by local people for local people it must also be efficient and effective and these two forces do not always pull in the same direction. It is a tension which is unlikely to go away and one which clear-sighted empathetic but courageous leadership often resolves, even if only in the long run and with hindsight. Ireland has benefited hugely from the kind of public servant best exemplified by Phil Monahan. There is no day when we can say their work is done and so we hope his example will capture the minds and hopes and hearts of this new generation.
In this renowned University, recently and not surprisingly awarded the status of University of the Year, your faith in education and young people is formidable. This is a place where problems are pursued until an answer reveals itself. You have known times when your brightest and best had no choice but the emigrant boat. You have watched their brainpower transform the fortunes of places far from home. And now we know different days, better days when their talent is remaking our country and changing Ireland’s future. Big changes, wide sweeps of changes that have earned Ireland global respect and admiration but as Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives once said, “all politics is local.” If the family is strong, the street is strong. If the street is strong the community is strong, if the community is strong the country is strong. If our gaze has become global and it has, thankfully mostly for all the right reasons, then let us make sure that our minds and hearts remain firmly focussed on the local, on the quality of life in our homes and communities, on our streets in daylight and in the night and that each of us is confronted with that great question asked by John F Kennedy in his Inauguration speech - ask not what your country can do for you rather ask what can you do for your country? The answer to that separates the citizen from the subject.
Nuair a deirtear as Gaeilge “Faoi Scath a Chéile a Mhaireann na Daoine” measim go mbheidh sé sin fíor go deo.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.