REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS IRELAND’S ANNUAL AWARDS TRINITY CHURCH
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS IRELAND’S ANNUAL AWARDS TRINITY CHURCH, GARDINER STREET, DUBLIN 1
Dia dhíbh a chairde. I am delighted to be here to present the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awards for 2009 and I want to thank Seán Coughlan, CEO of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland for his kind invitation to be with you this evening.
This magnificently renovated Trinity Church was once the old Labour Exchange and a symbol of despair. Times changed and Ireland experienced rapid progress, prosperity and almost full employment. Now times have changed again and the dole queues have returned but in this transformed building and through these awards we feel the transformative power of positive action and acknowledge our firm belief that we have the capacity to change again and make our country renewed and strong. It was ex-offenders working through the Trasna programme who renewed this building and it now symbolises the hope that social entrepreneurship is capable of creating.
We have always been a socially entrepreneurial people. We have a tradition of generosity, social responsibility, volunteering, community engagement and active citizenship which is second to none in the world. There is not a street or parish anywhere in this country where that tradition is not honoured in some way or another through the thousands of organizations that enrich our lives and which only exist because of good will and an applied creativity which had taken good ideas and made them real.
Our social entrepreneurs are people who have taken powerful idea from small beginnings and developed them to create large scale change. It has been said that no field was ever ploughed by turning it over in your mind and what distinguishes social entrepreneurs is that they dream but they also do. Their ability to innovative is a powerful force for change and for the confidence that comes from facing into problems and dealing with them effectively. These are people who do not wait for others to tackle problems but who acknowledge their own responsibility and create their own opportunities not for selfish but for unselfish reasons and outcomes.
A Japanese proverb tells us “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” The people we are celebrating here tonight are people with both vision and action, who use all the skills of business entrepreneurship not to make a profit but to make a difference. Thank you all for your action and for your vision and for the values of care for one another and for our community which infuse everything you do. Thanks to all of those in the business, arts, voluntary and other sectors, who aided by the able facilitation skills of Sean and his team, have mentored, counselled, helped and cajoled the excellence and the success of the social entrepreneurs we are honouring tonight. We need your drive, resilience and resourcefulness even more now than ever and we are fortunate to have you leading the team that is creating a renewed, a better, fairer Ireland. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.