REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER HOSTED BY GOVERNOR BILL OWENS, DENVER, COLORADO
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE STATE DINNER HOSTED BY GOVERNOR BILL OWENS, DENVER, COLORADO, THURSDAY, 18 MAY, 2006
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá an-áthas orainn bheith anseo libh tráthnóna i Denver.
Good evening Governor Bill Owens, First Lady Frances Owens, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am the fortunate person to make the first visit of an Irish President to Colorado but even my life in the foothills of Ireland’s beautiful Mountains of Mourne could not have fully prepared me for the awesome beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Actually it was the late John Denver who did that during my student days when Rocky Mountain High was one of our great anthems. The warm and generous welcome I have received from the Governor and First Lady has also made me feel very much at home and among good friends.
We have a lot in common Ireland and Colorado from the contribution of Irish emigrants whose children’s children now flourish here to the rapid contemporary transformations we have both experienced in recent decades. Both of us have experienced the move from traditional heavy industries to a ‘weightless’ modern high tech economy. In fact, we have helped lead the way. Having gone through both boom times and the lows that we know can follow speedy expansion, Ireland and Colorado are well aware of the challenges that accompany swift change.
I know that Governor Bill Owens has championed education as being key to the continued success of Colorado as well as putting in place a fiscal environment that attracts and fosters this new economy. We, in Ireland, have adopted a very similar approach and with considerable success.
The Irish economy is now one of the world's most dynamic and globalised, with extensive external trade and investment links. In January this year, Ireland was ranked the most free economy in the European Union and third in the world. Our ability to compete effectively in the global market has been underpinned by the development of a skilled and highly educated work force, with a strong emphasis on business skills. Ireland's education system is widely recognized as one of the best in the world in meeting the needs of a competitive economy.
The extension of free second-level education to all Irish citizens some forty years ago provided the seed capital for these developments, coupled with widened access to third level education more recently. The numbers in 3rd level education continue to grow and we expect that within a few years, 40% of Ireland’s working population will have 3rd level qualifications. The number of workers with science, technology and business qualifications continues to grow and postgraduate learning in particular is seen and supported as crucial to our continued success.
Successive Governments’ policies in Ireland have contributed significantly to our success. These have included the introduction of a low rate of corporation tax for companies operating in Ireland; the development of major infrastructure programmes, including a transport investment plan; a constructive ongoing focus on the consolidation of Ireland as a knowledge-based society and the creation of a social partnership agreement between government, employers, employees, the farming and civic sectors -all these policies play a part in the complex story of our success.
Another driving force behind the spectacular growth in Ireland in recent times has been foreign direct investment, chiefly in the areas of Information Communication Technology and Pharmaceuticals. US investors, in particular, accessed Ireland as a 'gateway' into the European market, an important attraction for many such companies being our EU and Eurozone membership. We are in fact the only English speaking country in the Eurozone.
This investment picture has not been one-sided. Indigenous Irish companies are also building a worldwide reputation, in particular for delivering innovative high technology products and services. Irish companies have in turn invested in the market here and Irish businesses now employ 55,000 people in the United States. Our competitiveness is increasingly based on knowledge, innovation, flexibility and the ability to work effectively with international partners and customers.
Economic success cannot be taken for granted and the major challenge for Ireland now is to ensure the sustainability in the global market of our strong economic performance. We will continue to foster an open economy and an open society focused on our ultimate goal which is the consigning of poverty to history, the drawing of all citizens into the mainstream, the creation of an Ireland where in the words of the 1916 Proclamation “all the children of the nation are cherished equally”.
And we now have a lot more children to cherish for our population is growing for the first time in over a century and a half. We are experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration, both from returning emigrants and from economic migrants. As a nation with a long and indeed recent history of emigration we have for the first time become a country of net inward migration. We have been particularly delighted to welcome considerable inward investment from the United States as well as expanding mutual trade and tourism.
I am of a generation of Irish people that has known at first hand the bleakness of involuntary emigration and unemployment. Yet today we have managed to achieve economic parity with many of our European neighbours and have surpassed many others. With the enlargement of the European Union, a process which Ireland fully supports, we are now part of a market of 456 million people, over 100 times larger than the size of the Irish domestic market.
Ireland has learnt much when traveling this path of economic development. The lessons include the realization that avoidance of change and an inward-looking approach does not protect employment or encourage economic growth. We can see too that economic success and social inclusiveness are inextricably linked. Our greatest natural resource is the brain power of our people and the machine which mines that resource is education. We want to continue to compete effectively in the global marketplace and we know that easily accessible high quality education available to all our citizens is fundamental. It was not available to so many of those who left our shores and headed here. They dreamt of the Ireland we now have - a prosperous, peaceful, vibrant and confident nation. They would, I hope, be proud of it and very pleased to see the central role played by the United States in both our peace and our prosperity. We truly appreciate the continuing encouragement of President Bush and his Administration, our friends of all political persuasions in Congress, and above all, in communities and cities like Denver for the ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland from which the whole island benefits so much.
Ireland has come a long way but not quickly. We have matured as a nation and are proud of what we have achieved. The interlocking connections between Ireland and the United States continue to grow and flourish. We are stewards of those connections in this generation and so have a duty of care owed to past and future generations. It is clearly a duty you take seriously here and I thank Governor Owens for hosting this dinner and for providing this space to remind us of our historical links, to allow us to reflect on our present day commonalities and to encourage us to forge further ties into the future.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.