REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A GARDEN PARTY FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF COMMUNITY GROUPS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A GARDEN PARTY FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF COMMUNITY GROUPS INVOLVED IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
Dia dhíbh a chairde go léir.
Hello everyone. You are very welcome to Áras an Uachtaráin this afternoon. Martin and I hope you will enjoy your visit and we thank you for coming. No doubt many people have travelled far – my hope is that you will leave having found the afternoon relaxing and with a store of happy memories. I will ask that whatever else you do, you extend the hand of friendship to someone who may now be a stranger but shortly and with this most simple of gestures soon won’t be.
This afternoon is a celebration of the work done by the countless number of motivated and caring people who have worked tirelessly to make local development the success story it has become in Ireland in recent years. The evidence is there for everyone to see including the OECD who in a report on Local Partnerships in Ireland said “Ireland’s local Partnerships enjoy a reputation in local Governance and energetic action on unemployment and poverty that is unmatched in Europe.” Likewise in a Value for Money Report, the Comptroller and Auditor General referred to “the unique innovative role of the local development initiatives.” But whatever about reports and studies, international or otherwise, it is from visiting communities and seeing at first hand what has been achieved and what community groups are set to achieve in the future that I have got a real sense of the power exercised, the synergies created, the imagination released, when local people come together in an effort to understand and tackle the issues, problems and challenges of their community.
It is hard to believe considering their success, that it is little more than a decade since the first 12 local partnerships were formed as not-for-profit private companies focussing on combating disadvantage and social exclusion. Today, the number of partnership companies operating in areas designated as being disadvantaged is 38 with ADM supporting an additional 33 Community Groups in non-designated areas. The message is clear – local people are best placed to identify their needs and the best answers emerge when they are at the heart of partnership. Today, many of those people are gathered in Áras an Uachtaráin. We wish we could accommodate all of those who are changing the face of local communities, bringing hope and opportunity, self-confidence and achievement but you are here representing them all and I hope you will bring back to them a message of resounding gratitude.
Today is simply about saying thank-you. Your work makes Ireland a better place to live. It brings hope and creates an engine of action at the heart of community. Ireland has seen remarkable changes in its economic fortune bringing considerable and widespread improvements in living standards and choices. But you know better than most that the rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats. Many people remain spectators, marginalised onlookers, their fear and alienation intensifying as others seem to go easily from strength to strength. Thankfully you have made their lives your business. In particular you have made their futures your business. You have committed yourselves to bringing about in our country that “true social order” that is spoken of in the Preamble to our Constitution, a social order in which the “ dignity and freedom of the individual is assured”. There are things standing in the way of that dignity and freedom for many of our fellow and sister citizens and for their children - things like poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, underachievement, lack of opportunity, lack of motivation, drug abuse, peripherality and a host of others. Some people looked at the problem and shook their heads, you formed unique and wonderfully powerful partnerships between State and community, you took up the challenge, reimagined the future and created a reassuring new chapter in the economic and social history of this country.
What you do is tough, relentless, demanding and gruelling but it is rewarding and fulfilling. It is also absolutely crucial to the future success of this island and its people and you can be justifiably proud of the unique contribution you have made to ensuring that success. I hope that you will long continue to have the energy and interest that sustaining this vital work of supplying energy, hope and heart to local communities involves.
I also hope you will enjoy the afternoon. We have some very fine entertainment in store for you in the form of the talented Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Eireann and Teadaí. I would like to thank them for entertaining us so wonderfully. I would also like to thank our MC Eugene Downes who does a great job keeping the show on the road and the representatives from Civil Defence John Gold and Lulu McGann who look after us so well.
Go raibh maith agaibh