REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BUILDING ENGINEERS THURSDAY, 28 SEPT
Is breá liom bheith anseo i bhúr measc ag an ócaid specialta seo, agus ba mhaith liom mo bhúiochas a chur in iul dibh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin.
I am honoured to join you this morning to open the Association of Building Engineers Millennium Conference and I would like to thank the Association’s President John Dumigan for the kind invitation.
I am delighted to welcome every one of you to Dublin and to say a special cead míle fáilte to those who are visiting Ireland for the first time. It is wonderful to see that this conference has attracted so many distinguished professionals involved in the technology of building worldwide. Here in Dublin I hope you will find exactly the right forum in which to debate that which you already know about your discipline, that which you intuit or dare to imagine and that which you hope for the future.
Each of you has made the journey to Dublin because you care about your profession and the people and places it serves. You each have your own reservoir of experience, skill and insight and you bring these with you. In a spirit of generosity you will share these things with others and in a spirit of scholarly curiosity and humility you will listen and hopefully learn from each other. You will be reassured by the things you hear which match your own understanding and deeply challenged by things which sound different, new or unknown. What you are doing here is engaging in the lifeblood of any successful discipline, keeping dynamic its spirit of intellectual enquiry and pushing out its boundaries.
Speakers at this conference will share with us their vast international experience. We are eager to listen and to learn from our international friends and colleagues and to share our own extensive Irish experiences with them. You know that in sharing knowledge nothing is taken away from you but a huge new resource is added to what is available to all of us.
The conference theme, Sustainable Cities, is one which has immediate and urgent relevance in the new millennium. It is not a topic relegated to the sole interests of a professional group because the decisions made by professionals like yourselves impact deeply on all of us who live and work in cities.
The onward march of urbanisation continues to pose enormous challenges for governments, planners and local authorities as populations in cities continue to grow and expand. Cities draw people to them in large numbers, they have their own magic and magnetism. The rapid growth in city life comes at a price. Apart from compounding the twin enemies of cities, pollution and traffic congestion, the explosion of city populations often results in complex social problems for city dwellers. Many of these problems in turn come onto your desks in some shape or form.
The individuals, families and communities which make up a city engage in endless processes of configuration and reconfiguration even in the space of a day, even in the most traditional of environments. Cities by their nature have a core of transience. Thousands of people pass by or through each day. Daytime in the city and nighttime in the city are different worlds. Yet there has to be a synchronicity between these worlds between the demands of transience and permanence. There has to be an efficient engine driving this thing we call a city so that those who use this space in whatever way they use it can go about their business and their lives in an acceptable degree of ease, comfort and security. Ideally the city has to have a heart which can take the edge off anonymity, which can make people feel as if they count.The design, organisation and separation of living working and social spaces in cities can militate against social cohesion, against the creation of a sense of community and belonging that is the bedrock of human need.
Speakers at this conference will have the opportunity to discuss and debate this and many other issues and will hopefully find ways to create a safe and community friendly environment for city dwellers. It is heartening to see that the range of topics that you will discuss over the next few days will address many of the common concerns that effect cities world wide, issues such as regeneration, urban design, waste management strategies and the issue of building to reduce crime. These issues are central to the challenge of creating sustainable cities.
Many of us inherited our cities. They grew up in places chosen by our ancestors. They are huge repositories of the history of our people and their changing times. But we should not underestimate our own capacity, our own responsibility in our own time, to shape and reshape the urban environment in a way which celebrates our past but which ensures that we are able to fully enjoy our cities in a rapidly changing world. I wish you every success as you try to help all of us on that journey to the future.
I know that it took a tremendous effort by many individuals and groups to organise this event. Each deserves thanks for their contribution to the success of this conference. I hope that you all enjoy the next few days in our beautiful capital city of Dublin. As you meet old friends and make new friends, as you listen and learn and teach each other, may you leave this conference renewed and refreshed in your vocation as building engineers.