REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF TULLACMONGAN RESOURCE CENTRE CAVAN, 22 MARCH 1999
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF TULLACMONGAN RESOURCE CENTRE CAVAN, 22 MARCH 1999
I am delighted and honoured to have been asked to officially open the Tullacmongan Resource Centre. I would like to particularly thank the Chairwoman of Cavan U.D.C., Patricia Walsh for inviting me here today.
The completion of this Centre is a wonderful testament to the hard work and energy of the people in this community. I know that this area has long suffered a great deal of poverty, unemployment and hardship. You have proved that no matter how difficult the problems, it is possible to bring about change. There are those who see only problems and lament them. There are others who see problems and set out to solve them. They are the people who bring hope and energy – who reshape their world for the better.
This country has come a long way in recent years. Our growing prosperity as a nation, our economic success, and extraordinary growth figures. These are to be greatly welcomed. They are not just empty statistics. They have translated into jobs, new opportunities and new hope for thousands of families.
Yet it is all too easy for us as a society to become complacent, to forget or ignore the deprivation that still exists in every city, town, village and rural area of this country. We must not forget, because if we fail to give all our people the opportunity to develop the talent, energy and enthusiasm locked within them, it will not simply be at a personal cost to those individuals and their families – we as a society will be the poorer for it.
Communities like Tullacmongan are living proof of how much local people can and want to do for themselves, if only they are listened to, given support and encouragement, and given the respect and dignity that they deserve. I know that a significant amount of the funding for this centre was raised locally, because you as local people know how much it is needed, and how much it can help. I would like to mention, in particular, a young boy from this area, Stephen Lee, who was tragically killed in a traffic accident on his way home from a very successful fund-raising fashion show. The opening of this resource centre today is a tribute to his memory and to his willingness to contribute to this community.
I have been extremely impressed by how much has already been accomplished here. The many activities organised by the Resource Centre Committee in the past year have included support for local women’s groups, the provision of a homework club and playschool, a range of parenting a personal development courses, health care, literacy and youth leadership training. This new centre is a wonderful resource in which these activities can expand even further.
The emphasis on supporting families is particularly to be welcomed. The shape and structure of family-life in Ireland is changing, but the family, whatever its form, remains the single most important structure within Irish life. It is the most important influencer of attitudes and opportunities. It is the place where children grow and learn, it determines how they perceive themselves and the world around them.
It is therefore essential that we give families every possible help, so that the next generation is one in which all members of this society have a real right and a real opportunity to develop their gifts to the full - a society in which they have a real expectation that their success in life will be determined by their own talents and gifts, not by the limited possibilities of the past.
In order to achieve this, we must make sure that they have support and encouragement from their earliest years. Only then, when the opportunities that life offers all our children are limited only by their own imagination and hard work, can we truly count ourselves a success as a society.
There is still some way to travel before we reach this goal. But initiatives like this resource centre, and many more around the country, are already making a difference in the lives of people. Your work is helping to shape and re-shape the lives of the people around you, replacing despair with new hope, giving new confidence and energy to this community. I am sure you have surprised yourselves by how much you have been able to achieve here, in partnership with local development organisations and state agencies. As the saying goes, “Ní neart go cur le chéile” – there is strength in unity.
I warmly commend everyone who has been involved in the project, but especially the Chairman of the Resource Centre Committee, Garda Michael Mulvey, and all of the Committee members. I wish all of you every success in your future work.