REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A RECEPTION TO MARK THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Dia dhíbh a chairde, it’s a great pleasure to welcome each of you to Áras an Uachtaráin this afternoon to mark and to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Economic and Social Research Institute. Today’s gathering includes past and present staff, associates and members and it spans the entire period from foundation to the present. What a half century it has been. Perfect for those engaged in economic and social research for Ireland has changed more in the last fifty years than probably any other period in its history. The ESRI has been there to interrogate those changes through scholarly research and analysis. From a once blank sheet of paper by your own efforts you have made the ESRI not simply a household name but a trusted source of credible information and a body held in high regard in Ireland and internationally. As well as informing policy-makers and civil society in Ireland, your work feeds into the European Union and other international fora and your statistics, analyses and findings are as likely to be found in the pages of the Irish Times as the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal or Le Monde. Yours is a very proud fifty years and that is down to the people who worked for and with the ESRI, their adherence no matter what winds were blowing to the highest professional values and ethics.
Keeping track of Ireland and making sense of some of the giddier aspects of our society has been anything but easy these past years, as we strode two giant steps forward through the boom of the Celtic Tiger years only to take one forced step back through the current recession. Back in 1960, years before the advent of free second level education, could anyone even in the ESRI have predicted how far we would have travelled as a country by 2010? And it is important to remind ourselves in this moment of anger and disappointment that much has changed for the better in terms of peace, prosperity and inclusivity and the impulse is strong to keep on improving and growing as an egalitarian democracy with a strong voice in Europe and in the world. These fifty years encompass the Troubles and the Peace Process, Ireland’s accession to the nine-member European Economic Community and the change from sterling-linked punts and to the euro. Throughout these fifty years, you have delivered rigorous, world-class research that has influenced policy, provoked discussion and debate and helped inform the decisions that have shaped the Ireland and Europe that we live in today.
Now, as the world’s economic order moves to a new phase, we need more than ever the clear, objective scientific approach that you bring to the table; whether that work is the latest monthly consumer sentiment index or the ambitious seven-year longitudinal survey on ‘Growing Up in Ireland.’ You are very important company on Ireland’s journey. You are intelligent company, caring company and credible company. I am delighted to have this opportunity today to thank you and all those who went before you for your work over the past fifty years. Thank you for helping us make sense of the Ireland in which we live; I hope that you enjoy this well-deserved fiftieth-anniversary celebration and I wish the Institute all the best with the next fifty years.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.