REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ASSOCIATION OF CHARTERED CERTIFIED ACCOUNTANTS LUNCH
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ASSOCIATION OF CHARTERED CERTIFIED ACCOUNTANTS LUNCH TO CELEBRATE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
Is cúis mhór áthais dom bheith anseo inniu agus muid ag ceiliúradh chéad bliain dul chun chinn. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
If ever a President was blessed among women it is Anthony Harbinson and if ever there was an abundance of Ulster Presidents and female Presidents it is here today as we gather to celebrate International Women’s Day in ACCA’s centenary year. To your profession’s great credit just under half of ACCA’s membership is female. To women’s great credit all five current Presidents of ACCA Ireland’s member networks are female so this is a very appropriate twinning of celebrations and a recognition of the huge benefits women’s participation has brought to this profession and indeed many others.
My own profession has changed dramatically in the thirty-five years since I first started as a humble law student whose first prescribed text - learning the Law by Professor Glanville Williams had a chapter ominously and tersely entitled “Women”. I need hardly remark there was no corresponding chapter entitled “Men”. The gist of that renowned jurist’s views was that the law was no place for women unless they were looking for acceptable husbands and in any case everyone knew that women made useless advocates as their voices did not carry as far as mens’. There was a man who could have done with an Irish mother. But it is of some comfort to know that he would not dare today to publish such a view, his book is now on the social anthropology course and if he were alive he would be up in front of the Equal Opportunities Commission, no doubt to be cross-examined by some smart female lawyer…..
International Women’s Day itself is not quite the full century. It is ninety-three years since the first International Women’s Day was held on the 19th of March in 1911. It was held at a time of great progress in the campaign for women’s equality, but also at a time of enormous, powerful opposition to the achievement of that goal.
Earlier this week I was in Trinity College to launch the celebration of the centenary since women were first admitted to that four hundred year old institution. Those who strongly opposed their admission back in 1904(among whom were the most celebrated intellects of the day), made dire predictions about the grim future that lay ahead once that closed door was opened to the female of the species. It never occurred to them that a College founded by a woman could actually be open to women. They must be giddy in their graves for I am their worst nightmare, your five Presidents are their worst nightmare and worse still, sixty percent of all Trinity students are now women. They were right - life would never be the same again and thank the Lord it isn’t - it is infinitely better, fairer, more prosperous, more hope-filled, more creative, more imaginative and we have much more to look forward to because the journey is far from over here in Ireland never to mind the rest of the world.
The vast majority of women are still living with attitudes and restrictions like those that existed here a century ago and our world is hugely impoverished by the way in which their individual and collective talents are wasted. Here in Ireland we are beginning to feel the huge surge of power, energy and focus that occurs when a country flies on two wings instead of one. There is colossal work to be done in bringing that same surge of energy to our globe through the full social inclusion of women world-wide. At the moment Ireland, in its EU Presidency role, is representing the EU in New York at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The Commission is overseeing the implementation of the Beijing Platform Action which sets out an agenda for the empowerment of women world wide. It strives to achieve the removal of all obstacles to women’s active participation in public and private life and is therefore very important to all of society, if we want to fly firmly on two wings rather than flounder on one. I wish them well in their endeavours.
But here at home that two-winged bird has not yet achieved its highest altitude, its greatest velocity nor will it until the very last vestiges of bias against women and obstacles to their advancement, are eliminated and we achieve what our Constitution calls simply “true social order”. The Equality for Women Measure developed under the National Development Plan looks to improving women’s access to education, training and employment, the achievement of equality in the workplace and in business and the participation of greater numbers of women in decision making - so we have a plan and a destination.
We are in many respects a particularly fortunate generation for today’s prosperity has led to greater opportunities in the labour market for men and for women. But as with all widespread social changes there are both upsides and downsides. The significant pressures on family life caused by greater labour market participation present problems and issues which we ignore at our peril and they still keep women from full participation in political life, boardroom life and in all the places where decisions are made that affect us humanly in the quality of our lives. If we want to get the best from our labour force and the best for our society we all have a vested interest in and a responsibility for ensuring that appropriate support systems exist so men and women can achieve a balanced participation in both work and family life and that one aspect does not gain or overwhelm at the expense of the other.
Of course where family life is blighted by domestic violence there is a litany of casualties and we are all ultimately diminished by it so it is good to see that Women’s Aid was your choice of charity to support on this occasion. It ties neatly in with your centenary theme of “responsibility” which has many perhaps more obvious linkages in a profession where public trust and accountability are high priorities but it is very reassuring to see a profession express its view of its own civic responsibility in such broad social terms and I congratulate you and thank you on behalf of all those who will benefit from your help. Another example of good practice and a clear indication of the imaginative and socially responsible direction taken by ACCA. I congratulate the five regional Presidents on their success on this International Women’s Day and through your President, I offer congratulations to all those whose lives have been invested in a century of profession building. May the years ahead bring even greater success and fulfilment.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.