REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF SPAFIELD FAMILY RESOURCE CENTRE CASHEL
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF SPAFIELD FAMILY RESOURCE CENTRE CASHEL, CO. TIPPERARY, TUESDAY, 2 MARCH
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith libh inniu i gContae Tiobraid Árann. Míle buíochas díbh as an chaoin chuireadh agus an fáilte.
Thank you for that warm and generous Tipperary welcome. I am delighted to be here today in the beautiful and historic town of Cashel to perform the official opening of the Spafield Family Resource Centre. I would like to thank Margaret O’Donnell and all of the staff and members of the Family Resource Centre for inviting me to be here today and for giving me the opportunity to visit this very impressive facility and to learn about the positive impact the project is having on the lives of families from the area. It is all the more appropriate that this opening should take place in this year which the United Nations has declared as the 10th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family.
It is heartening to see a project like this grow and develop with the focus very much on the interests of the local community. Today is an important occasion and I would like to say to everyone who has worked so hard to make this possible and to providing the wide ranging and high standard services to the local community with such professionalism, comhghairdeachas libh, congratulations to one and all.
Bringing a project like this to life is costly in financial terms, but more significantly, it’s cost in terms of the time and effort put into it by those wonderfully generous and caring friends and supporters and volunteers is impossible to calculate. What we see around us today is testament to the commitment and tireless energy of those remarkable people who have been involved in the project over the years. The Spafield community can be proud of their Family Resource Centre and grateful to its own community builders who had the foresight and initiative to bring it to life.
The diverse range of quality activities and services provided by the Centre is impressive as is the very welcoming environment. Life can be chaotic and when problems come it is important to know there is help, support, a way out, a better future. Here there is a wide variety of supports for all aspects of community life including computer training, a drugs awareness programme and many other educational and training opportunities. I am grateful to have this opportunity to see for myself some of the facilities and services that have made the Resource Centre so vibrant, among them the quality childcare service so essential to creating the space for women in particular to avail of education, training and employment opportunities and a state-of-the-art Information and Communications Technology facility providing valuable training in information technology skills. I believe that you’re even into driving instruction – well computer driving in any event, as you run ECDL courses and there’s more, much more going on here, all of it building capacity in the individual, building confidence, skill and resilience and at the same time strengthening community through strengthening the individual.
Spafield Family Resource Centre is also an excellent example of local partnership. The Management Committee comprises representatives from right across the local community and has forged strong links with the many statutory and non-statutory agencies and organisations serving the area, such as, FÁS, Tipperary Youth Services, Cashel Town Council and the Mid-Tipperary Drugs Task Force. I know that you have also received support and assistance from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform through the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs through the CAIT initiative. As the old Irish saying so rightly says ní neart le chur le chéile – there is strength through partnership and this centre is proof of it. With the things you have achieved already it is no surprise that you have many plans for the future development of the Centre and the range of services you provide here. You have come a long way in a short time from those early days in 1996 when a few residents from Spafield Crescent came together with a good idea, no money and a determination that their area would have its own Family Resource Centre to act as a leaven at the heart of community. The leaven goes into the bread to make it rise, to give it texture and to get the best from the mixture. That is exactly what this resource centre will bring to Spafield. Congratulations and well done.
Go neirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.