REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE DUBLIN REGIONAL MEETING OF ‘BREAKING THROUGH’
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE DUBLIN REGIONAL MEETING OF ‘BREAKING THROUGH’ ROYAL MARINE HOTEL, DUN LAOGHAIRE
Tá áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as an chaoin-chuireadh.
I am delighted to join you here today for this Dublin Regional Meeting of the ‘Breaking Through’ Network. I’m sure that you are all energised and buzzing with fresh ideas from your recent All-Ireland Conference and I wish you well with today’s deliberations.
Over the past number of months, I have visited quite a number of schools that are taking part in the ‘Breaking the Cycle’ project, which is, of course, just one of the initiatives which comes under the ‘Breaking Through’ umbrella. That project is proof, if any were needed, of the enormous potential which is unlocked when the gifts and talents of all our children are given a real, an effective chance to shine. This applies especially to those children and young people whose circumstances in life are at the polar opposite of privilege. Without recognition of the extra problems these young people face, without a helping hand to lift them on to the same plane of opportunities as others in our society, it is all too easy for them to slip away into a cycle of defeatism and self-destructiveness. We have all seen it happen: the bright-eyed enthusiasm of a young child hardened to cynicism by the early teenage years, the young person whose life is a catalogue of wasted opportunity and underachievement even before he or she reaches adulthood. Those half-lived lives are evidence, not of personal failure or the inevitability of the cycle of poverty and disadvantage, but of the cost to both the individual and the community when we allow even one person to slip through the safety net of care. We do not have a lot by way of natural resources in Ireland but our true potential, our truest resource is in our people. Every citizen who never gets to know their own gifts, whose talents lie dormant – experiences a loss to the self that is awful but we as family, as neighbour, as colleague, as community, as country – we too experience a loss we cannot afford.
That is where this network comes into play. Each initiative, each agency on its own has the task of strengthening that human safety net so that lives do not slip through. You each possess a part of the wisdom and experience we need to make that net as robust as possible. By working together, pooling information and sharing experiences, each vital but separate piece can come together, can find its match, can make sense of a piece only poorly understood, can create the full picture, giving far greater impact to your individual efforts. There is an Irish saying: ‘Ní neart go cur le chéile’ – our strength is in working together – and already, you are starting to reap the benefits of this approach. I particularly welcome the All-Ireland dimension of ‘Breaking Through’ – and indeed the contacts you have made with initiatives further afield in Europe – because the problems of early school leaving, disadvantage and poverty are issues which every society faces and has attempted to tackle.
Never before have we had such resources, such opportunities, to fully realise the promise of an Ireland which is truly a republic of equals. Never before has the cost of failing to do so, been so high. We cannot afford to waste so much potential, for we will never fully make up the loss of talent to families, communities, voluntary groups, to our cultural life, to the world of business, to our children’s future, that such a failure implies. One of the saddest things in life is wasted potential and we know that for many who have fallen into the cycle of disadvantage, the die was cast in their early childhood years, years which were not used well and which set them on a journey into a cul de sac of bitter disappointment, violence, drug abuse and depression. It makes sense, therefore, to intervene as early as possible, before the damage has been done. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we can afford to give up on those for whom the early warning system did not work. We have all seen the miracles that second chance education has wrought, the way that involvement in community development can transform expectations and self-respect. It is never to late, for the individual or for us as a community. Every bridge that we build between the centre and margins, brings us closer to achieving a more equal, humanly decent Ireland in which the gifts of all are valued and enabled to thrive.
I would like to warmly commend everyone involved in the ‘Breaking Through’ network, for the progress you are making in building that future. Yours is important work, often done behind the scenes, sometimes noticed not for its successes but when problems arise. It can be difficult to maintain hope, energy and enthusiasm and so your initiative in building up this Network is doubly commendable. I would like to thank you for all you have done to date, and wish you every success in the future.
Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.