REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO MARK EUROPEAN VICTIMS WEEK
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO MARK EUROPEAN VICTIMS WEEK TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY, 2001
Is cúis mhór áthais dom fáilte fíorchaoin a chur romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
We have people here today from all over Ireland, so a warm ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’ to each of you – those of you who have travelled long distances, and those who took a long time to travel a short distance! As patron of Victim Support and indeed as a one time member, I am delighted to welcome you to Áras an Uachtaráin to mark this very special week - European Victims Week.
All the words we associate with the word ‘victim’, give us a grim insight into what it is to find yourself in the unwelcome situation of being a victim - wounded, loss, suffering, hurt, injured. These are not things we would wish on ourselves or anyone else and like every other European country, we in Ireland are deeply challenged to find ways of preventing people from becoming victims of crime and offering them effective support when they do. Those who have been victims of crime know well how profoundly traumatic the experience and its aftermath can be. They will tell you that crimes which may seem relatively minor to some have a capacity to skew a life, to throw it out of kilter and leave a lasting psychological scar. How much worse then, the consequences when the victim is subjected to violence.
Crime wrecks us individually and collectively. Every person who lives in dread and fear as a result of crime or the fear of crime is a neighbour, a friend, a relative. The absence of peace of mind in their lives, ripples out in its effects, tainting family, street, community, country. Criminality weakens our civic life adding layers of utterly unnecessary stress and worry to all our lives whether victims or not. When an elderly lady is mugged in our parish, everyone feels the unease that follows. When a teenager is bullied and harassed on his way home from a disco or youth club, every parent wonders whether their child will arrive safely home. Everyone of us wonders will we be the next home with a victim of a random act of badness.
For a long time the victim’s needs were thought to be adequately addressed by the pursuit and punishment of the criminal. Today thankfully we know that victim’s need more than simply a criminal justice response. They themselves have a complex of needs and we are fortunate that for the past fifteen years, Victim Support has provided a voice for the victims of crime in Ireland. Through your work, your commitment and dedication to support victims of crime we are only beginning to truly understand, appreciate, analyse and respond to the manifold needs of the victims. And as we listen our responses are being reshaped. Victim Support has been an important contributor to that change and it is to its great credit that, while it receives support from the State, it depends primarily on volunteers who give of their time so freely. So often the criminal act makes us despair of human nature. It makes us less trusting, less hopeful, more cynical. The commitment of volunteers, of strangers outreaching with compassion to strangers is a crucial antidote to that despair. Your work allows us to believe in people again, in goodness again. You build up and reinforce the fabric of a civilised society which criminality weakens and strains.
Great thanks is due to everyone involved in Victim Support. Yours is an example of true community spirit. Instead of wringing your hands you have rolled up your sleeves and been prepared to make a difference. Why, because you refuse to be defeated by the evil that men and women perpetrate on their fellow and sister human beings.
Many victims travel a lonely and long-term journey. Nowhere is this more true than in my own homeplace, Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement rooted as it is in an overwhelming community will for peace, has at last brought real hope for the future. However not everyone whose life has been marred by violence in the past 30 years will be able to forget their experiences or draw a line under their pain and loss. There is no law of nature that says victims recover automatically and no side has a monopoly on victimhood. And so their traumas must continue to receive consideration.
I know that there is a high level of co-operation between Victim Support and Victim Support Northern Ireland in addressing the needs of those who have been victims, both direct and indirect. In this time of hope and optimism, when opportunities for reconciliation are being grasped with courage it is an essential part of the healing journey that the victims of violence be allowed to play their full part and have their say.
I would like to pay tribute to everyone involved with Victim Support in Ireland. Through your efforts a more mature and sophisticated understanding of the plight of crime victims has emerged and has led to the development of services and responses from the statutory and voluntary agencies. We no longer look at victims through the narrowly focused lens of the criminal justice system, now we have a window inside the feeling person. Your work is valued and deeply appreciated by the individuals whom you have helped but it is also valued by this society which has been educated by your work, heartened by it and challenged by it.
I would like to thank you for making the journey to Áras an Uachtaráin this morning to mark this special week. I hope you will enjoy your visit and I would like to thank everyone who has worked hard to make this a memorable visit for you – Claire McCague our harpist who greeted you in the front Hall and to the wonderful group Téadaí who are providing today’s entertainment in the Hyde Room.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.