Remarks by President McAleese at the Business in the Community Northern Ireland Gala Awards Dinner
Remarks by President McAleese at the Business in the Community Northern Ireland Gala Awards Dinner Belfast Waterfront Hall
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur measc anseo ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
Good evening and thank you for both the invitation and the welcome to The Business in the Community Gala Awards Dinner. It is great to see the Waterfront buzzing with such a great gathering in celebration of the power of responsible leadership.
Could there be a more timely, relevant and topical issue than responsible leadership particularly allied to those words, business and community? In the four years since I last addressed a Business in the Community audience, there has been a significant shift in the intertwined political and economic fortunes on the island. The peace process has thankfully consolidated which is great news and sets the scene for a future to really look forward to. The bad news though is that, thanks to irresponsibility in certain sectors both globally and locally, the prosperity process here and in many other parts of the world has stumbled, bringing a sense of crisis to businesses, workplaces, homes and communities. Citizens face a time of austerity and sacrifice and financial institutions face a new regime of stringent regulation nationally and internationally. We can see now with a humbling clarity that a sustainable economy depends on principled individuals who work within a principled and ethical culture. That means people who understand the complex web that intimately connects individuals to community and community to commerce. Each has a vested interest in the wellbeing of the other. Each is diminished and damaged by the neglect or exploitation of the other. These are truths that Business in the Community stands for and has become a champion of and they have now come into their own.
This gathering tonight – the largest Gala awards ever held in the Waterfront – is testimony to the fact that responsible leadership is alive and acting as a vital leaven throughout Northern Ireland. Since their inauguration in 2006, this gathering has become Northern Ireland’s most influential and well-respected showcase of corporate responsibility. It is only made possible thanks to the likes of ESB Independent Energy, the other category sponsors and media partner Ulster Business whose support and sponsorship facilitates a recognition, celebration and encouragement of companies which give exemplary leadership in the way they express their responsibility with regard to the environment, the workplace, the community and the economy.
The Regional Recognition Awards to be presented later this evening show the kind of world that is possible where a consciousness of environmental sustainability has been hard-wired and mainstreamed. The awardees’ experience shows the considerable economic, social, community and workplace benefits that flow from conscientiously improving macro and micro resource management to reduce environmental impact. There is a pathway to a sustainable future and these awardees light it up.
The awards’ focus on Diversity in the Workplace also lights the pathway to an integrated community, a healthy society made up of people of all sorts of backgrounds, politics, identities and perspectives – each one welcome, each one comfortable with difference – seeing in it the very seed of creativity and the very test of our humanity.
Finally, the Local Community Impact Award goes right to the heart of the ethos of Business in the Community by giving a clap on the back to organisations that invest personnel, resources, time, finance and expertise in order to improve the lives of the local people and the local community.
I have no doubt that every one of the awardees, past and present, would say that, for all that we focus on what they have given to the community, the rewards both tangible and intangible which they have received have vindicated their investment with rich dividends that no one could hope to fully measure. They are to be seen in attitude, atmosphere, in positivity, optimism, gratitude, opportunities, wisdom, insight, empathy and change. They are to be seen in the growing faith in the future which Business in the Community has helped to develop in disadvantaged and hard-to-reach communities through its mentoring and capacity-building programmes. Having often borne the brunt of the troubles, those communities are now actively growing their ambition to have a peaceful and prosperous future. There is an old Irish saying “Giorrian beirt bothar” - two shortens the road - and the company of Business in the Community is shortening the road to progress for those once marginalised communities.
In fact that is the business of Business in the Community – to be friend and neighbour, to be advisor and mentor, to be a living, contributing part of community, not a passive spectator at lives lived around the buildings and offices in which business is conducted. I am very proud to have been associated with Business in the Community in Northern Ireland since its inception and now as patron of its sister organisation south of the border. As an organisation, it is an exemplar of responsible leadership and little by little, by dint of relentless advocacy and the power of success it has brought the issue of responsible leadership from ‘any other business’ to the first item at the top of the agenda.
Tonight’s winners along with all the others of past years have made responsible leadership their business in their businesses. To each of them is owed a public and civic debt of gratitude and I hope these awards give them the confidence and passion to keep true to their vision for a world where people care about each other enough to get involved in making good things happen. Congratulations to you all, go raibh míle maith agaibh.