REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN OF THE YEAR AWARD
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN OF THE YEAR AWARD BY THE EUROPEAN MOVEMENT IRELAND
A cháirde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh ar an ócáid speisialta seo.
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is good to join you once again for this prestigious annual award of European of the Year, when the European Movement singles out an exceptional man or woman whose work and leadership has deepened Ireland’s consciousness and its confidence as a centre of gravity in Europe.
For over 50 years now the European Movement Ireland has committed itself to fostering an energetic engagement between Ireland’s citizens and European issues. Our thirty year membership of the European Union has been a period of unprecedented transformation and we are rightly proud not just of what membership has helped us to attain but also what we, despite our size and peripherality, have contributed to the Union and its development and through it, to the wider world.
With the Presidency of the Union in Irish hands and ten new member states just weeks away from accession, it would be hard to find a more perfect or exciting time to be declared European of the Year. I have been privileged to visit most of those States and I know that for them Ireland, above all other member states, represents an inspirational image of hope and of remarkable success. Through us they see the evidence of how a small state can benefit from membership of the Union; how it can make a significant and constructive contribution to its own development, how it can work as a colleague and an equal with the Union’s other member states and how it can at the same time retain, strengthen and express forthrightly its own sense of national identity.
It is deceptively easy to talk about the European Union and its contribution to peace and to economic development as if they just happen, as if their certainty was ever guaranteed. But none of it happened by coincidence or serendipity. From its foundation by Schuman and Monet to the present day the contribution of many outstanding individuals to this exceptional human enterprise has been central.
When I visited the institutions of the European Union, late last year, I was particularly struck by the extraordinary dedication and commitment of Irish citizens to the European ideal, demonstrated across every institution. At the European Parliament, the Court of Auditors, the European Investment Bank, the European Commission, the Irish Representation to the EU and the Irish Embassy in Brussels, I spoke with fellow country women and men from every county, all working across a vast range of interlocking networks for the benefit of Ireland and for the greater European good. Much of what they do goes on without much public notice or active interest and yet it is absolutely essential that we as citizens maintain a strong awareness of the webs which link us and our futures, inextricably to Europe.
In 2001 the Government established the National Forum on Europe to push that awareness to a new and fresh level in the light of an enlarging Union and the proposed new constitution. It was an ambitious and vital project, for the mood of disconnection between citizen and centre in Europe was growing more palpable and more worrying daily. The job of heading up the Forum called for someone with a very special mix of skills and experience, of vision and achievement.
The great Ulsterman, Senator Maurice Hayes was an obvious and an inspired choice. Maurice’s contribution to Ireland is in no doubt. It fills many pages: from his multifaceted career as a senior public servant in Northern Ireland, to his first-rate service in Sunningdale; his contribution to Health and Social Policy through his career as Ombudsman; and an active retirement which includes membership of the Senate and makes the word retirement into a nonsense.
His roles have been as many as his contribution has been valuable. The Irish people watched with admiration as he launched into the Chairmanship of the National Forum on Europe - 70 meetings across the country, three tours, 20 county locations and 30 towns and villages. To all of it he brought that feisty, vigorous and passionate independence that provoked and sustained a hugely important debate on Europe, the length and breadth of Ireland, in a credible, affirming, encouraging and unbiased forum. We owe him and the Forum a huge debt for its work is a crucial investment in our future.
But I particularly owe him a debt for the role he played in my childhood, bringing the Sam Maguire home to County Down and so bringing an awakening sense of pride and purpose to a community suffering the brunt end of a sadly dysfunctional Northern Ireland. Maurice’s entire life has been dedicated to making the place of our birth a place of equality, of justice, of respect and of opportunity. I was privileged to work with him on the Senate of the Queen’s University of Belfast for many years and to watch his distilled wisdom at work. And of course he has also entertained us greatly with his evocative and straight-talking books with their deep love of place and fascination for people. My own favourite is his book entitled “Minority Verdict”. Now he finds himself on the receiving end of a very benign and hard-earned majority verdict - in fact a unanimous verdict, that he is Ireland’s European of the year.
I am very pleased, therefore, to present the European of the Year Award to Senator Maurice Hayes.
Comhghairdeachas leat. Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.