REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE BUSINESS IN THE COMMUNITY ALL-IRELAND CONFERENCE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE BUSINESS IN THE COMMUNITY ALL-IRELAND CONFERENCE ON CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur measc anseo ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
Good afternoon and thanks to each of you for being here today to support this unique and important initiative jointly convened by Business in the Community Ireland and Business in the Community Northern Ireland. I thank both organisations for inviting me to close the day’s proceedings, though it is a bit daunting to know the next item on the agenda is drinks and networking! I take particular pride in the work of both organisations and in this joint venture for I am patron of one and a former member of the other and I firmly believe what they believe, that corporate social responsibility is good for business and good for the community and that examples of best practice increase their potential value exponentially when they are showcased and shared.
I hope that these hours spent in each other’s company today and focussing on the merits and the practice of CSR will have stretched your imaginations and your enthusiasm for this work which is so essential if we are, between us all, to build a humanly decent society where every citizen is in the mainstream by choice and not on the margins by fate.
We describe ourselves as free market economies both North and South but the freedom we exercise in the world of commerce and industry is anything but value-free. We deal with human beings as employees, as colleagues, as consumers, as neighbours. Every enterprise is driven by the brain-power and human interaction of men and women. Every enterprise, even those which market virtual realities, markets to a real world of individuals, families and communities. There are many models of engagement between business and people to be seen around our world. Some of them are cynical and exploitative, reducing the human person both as worker and consumer. Some of them are exemplary showing a care and concern for the human condition above and beyond the drumbeat of the bottom line. History has shown us repeatedly that where commerce acts unjustly or selfishly in the pursuit of profit there is a potential for instability which benefits no-one, but where business takes seriously its responsibility to enrich life itself, while still turning a profit, there is not just a feel-good factor to keep a PR company happy but there is a visible, tangible, step up in the direction of a problem solving society where everyone counts.
The statute books are littered with laws which force good practice or penalise bad practice, as employers, manufacturers, as sellers of goods and services but here today you have been exploring the good practice which is not forced or demanded or commanded but offered, generously and freely, and it is that good practice which shows the human heart of enterprise, the conscience of enterprise, the connectedness of enterprise to a world beyond efficiency, productivity, profit, compliance, a world of softer words – care, concern, support, nurture, connect, help.
Business in the Community does not ask business to forget its key roles or become distracted from its main business but its asks business to recognise the latent and often untapped power, energy which can be harnessed imaginatively for the common good, bringing credit, recognition and respect to the business through the visible, tangible uplift in the community. It also asks both business and the community to consider themselves as part of the whole, not as differentiated, separate entities that exist entirely outside of each others orbit but umbilically connected to one another, and so intimately connected that there is a mutual dependency and a great scope for growth from mutual dialogue and engagement.
Almost a century ago, the American President, Woodrow Wilson, in his concern about the concentration of economic power in the hands of the few, set himself the purpose ‘to square every process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have always carried in our hearts.’ As President of Ireland I share that vision which fits so well with the social principles of our 1937 Constitution to promote ‘a social order in which justice and charity shall inform all the institutions of the national life’.
Corporate Social Responsibility is, at its simplest, part of the civic duty we owe as individuals, as communities and as corporations to take care of the world around us and the people in it. It involves an integrity about the things we do and the way we do them so that, at the very least, we do no damage and, at the very best, the world is a better place because we passed this way. And as you will have heard today there is a limitless amount of good waiting to be done and any amount of life-enhancing, workable ideas just waiting for champions.
Although Corporate Social Responsibility may look to the unconverted like just an additional burden, it is, paradoxically, a key element in business success and sustainability, in employee satisfaction, loyalty and retention, in trust-building between management and other staff and in overall team motivation. This Conference and the collegial relations between Business in the Community Ireland and Northern Ireland has though an even more profound and significant dimension as a contribution to a future of good neighbourliness and partnership instead of the barren cross-border mistrusts and enmities of old. This conference and your participation gives a strong practical example of mutual respect, of the advantages of sharing experience and insight and of the formidable power that can be harnessed by two instead of one.
I would like to thank all of the speakers and participants. I hope you leave with enough ideas to keep you busy for some considerable time ahead and, even more, robust networks of mutual support to help you roll out your vision of corporate social responsibility until it is second nature in every area of business north and south.
Thank you all very much.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.