REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT BARNARDOS TOMORROW’S CHILD CONFERENCE THURSDAY, 6th NOVEMBER 2008
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT BARNARDOS TOMORROW'S CHILD CONFERENCE THURSDAY, 6th NOVEMBER 2008
Dia dhíbh, a cháirde go léir. Tá mé iontach sásta bheith anseo libh inniu.
Good morning everybody and thank you for your warm welcome to your conference. It is my great pleasure, in turn, to welcome all of you - and in particular those of you who have travelled great distances - to be here for these two days and I am delighted to offer each of you the traditional Irish welcome, céad míle fáilte - one hundred thousand welcomes.
I want to begin by thanking Fergus Finlay for inviting me to address this important conference and by paying tribute to Barnardos for hosting the event. Your focus is on Tomorrow’s Child, that already growing or, perhaps, not yet born youngster who will be tomorrow’s friend, neighbour, colleague, leader, problem-solver, or problem. It is essential that we express our concern about that child today, in this present moment because we cannot afford the indulgence of waiting to see how that child will turn out.
Sitting here and now, we know the future we would desire for every child, the happy, contented, wholesome childhood, the unconditional and ever-present love we would want for them, the chance to grow emotionally and psychologically strong, to become a coper, to become self-confident, to become a fine, well-integrated human being. We know, however, that even as we speak here, there are forces at work in those little lives, twisting them, skewing them, casting shadows over their yet unlived days, seeding their futures with toxic spores. My grandmother used to say that what is learnt in childhood is engraved in stone, and it is a very crucial and critical thing to be an engraver on a child’s life. Engrave well and a little life flourishes, engrave badly and the blemish can ruin, not just that life, but many more that come into its orbit. Carson McCullers put it well, “The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes”.
Each child is precious in itself. Each child is precious to our nation. Each child has his or her own set of gifts, gifts to enhance his or her own life, gifts to be put at the service of family, community, country. Where those gifts go to waste or are used to make life miserable, we all lose and we all pay a price, but the individual pays the greatest price of all. It is, therefore, in everyone’s interest to ensure that all of our children have a share in the future of this country and that they have the opportunity to develop and mature and to contribute their own unique abilities to their country and to the world.
The 1916 Proclamation of Independence put it very poetically when it set us an agenda as a republic of equals where the children of the nation would be cherished equally. That ambition has not shifted nor, despite huge effort especially in recent years, has it yet been fully realised. Perhaps with your help we will advance the journey another important step or two. A lot of children depend on us to get things right for them. Though they do not yet know it, they need champions and advocates, they need each one of you who has committed to this vocation of care for the young.
Ireland’s children are infinitely more fascinating today than at any time in our past for they are of every colour and creed and from every part of the world. Many of them are incredibly and quietly courageous. I think of the youngsters who have come here in recent years leaving behind everything familiar and comfort-giving - friends, grandparents and schools. They arrive as strangers into streets and classrooms. They do not know the language. Their parents do not know the language. Their support hinterland is thousands of miles away. Their fears must be so profound. Yet they find the strength of character to learn a new language, make new friends, even to cope at times with heart-breaking racist attitudes. All these children are Ireland’s care. They are all the strength and joy of our future. What happens in their homes today and in their schools and on their streets has the capacity to make or break their future lives.
They are vulnerable to so many things over which they have no control but which will impact emphatically on their life’s chances and on their very humanity - from poverty to poorly skilled parents, from economic instability to global warming, so much of the futures they long for and look forward to as innocent children do, are already well and truly mortgaged.
Still what drives us never to give into the counsel of despair is the sure knowledge that a good start is still half the work and by far the most important half. Whatever the prevailing winds or tides, our children are and must be a major priority for civic society. For it is civic society that ultimately picks up the pieces in terms of behavioural problems, mental ill-health, underachievement and marginalisation. Experience has taught us that children’s chances are vastly improved where civic society supports families effectively, whatever the nature or structure of those families. Helping families to build their strengths and deal better with their weaknesses fosters a positive experience of family and of childhood. Leaving families to sink or swim on their own is a recipe for problems that keep on repeating themselves from one generation to the next. In these tougher economic times we look to our strengths and to resources which, harnessed well, have the capacity to bring our children safely through to adulthood. Every hour of volunteering - whether in a youth or sports club, or babysitting to let parents have an hour to go to a parenting class - these things bring care, compassion, altruism and hope into everyday lives where those things might otherwise be absent.
Every hour of professional involvement in childcare brings expertise, wisdom, experience and guidance into those same lives. These things are leavens working around the complex world of human psychology, helping to raise the human person up, helping our children to grow safely and well. We already know the face and faces of failure. They were the children who deserved better but did not get it. Today, as often angry adults looking back at the landscape of wasted chances that ate up their lives, they challenge us to dig more deeply, see more clearly into this amazing space we call childhood and to understand it as the garden in which the seeds of adulthood are planted. What we sow we will reap.
I know you are here to help us sow and nurture carefully and I thank Barnardos for being such faithful friends to our nation’s most vulnerable children and for the chance this conference offers to galvanise our best efforts so that as many of tomorrow’s children as possible won’t need Barnardos services.
Go raith míle maith agaibh go léir.