REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE WHEEL’S NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CIVIL SOCIETY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE WHEEL’S NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CIVIL SOCIETY JURYS HOTEL CONFERENCE CENTRE, BALLSBRIDGE
Cuireann sé áthas ar mo chroí bheith anseo libh inniu. Míle bhuíochas díbh go léir as an chuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croiúil.
It is good to be back again at The Wheel and to see how far you have travelled since we last met. I thank you all for the warm and generous welcome and in particular I would like to thank Deirdre Garvey for the kind invitation to join you today.
This year-long debate on Civil Society which you are part of could not be happening at a better or more significant time. Later, this week I will launch a book on the history of the ordinary members of the Church of Ireland, a people often forgotten or overlooked in the story of not just that church but many churches where the gravitational pull of the altar or the clergy is sometimes so strong that it is forgotten for whom church exists and who makes it live from generation to generation.
The gravitational pull of politics and of market-place, can sometimes have precisely the same effect of highlighting just one high visibility cohort, conferring on it a skewed importance and at the same time obscuring that silent majority at the heart of politics, at the heart of the market, the human beings whose lived lives hold self together, hold family together, hold community together, hold country together. These people make or break civil society and it is absolutely right that you should turn the spotlight to that critical and powerful cultural force, which sometimes needs to be reintroduced to the powerfulness of its own power and the wasted potential that lurks in its weaknesses.
Today’s Ireland is a modern liberal democracy which asserts its belief in the equality of each human being. We have an equality of opportunity agenda which has helped plot a new future for many previously marginalized groups, women, the disabled, travellers, carers to name just a few. But sometimes the individual human person has difficulty believing in his or her own equality. Old hangovers from Empire, from a class ridden society, from a gender biased society, from a clericalised society, are still to be found deep in the human psyche, holding us back, keeping us from fully knowing ourselves and truly harnessing our potential. Civic society is itself the carrier of many of those paralysing attitudinal and structural viruses that hold back human progress, just as it is also the generator of the dynamic ideas and processes which can attack and overcome them. Strong, egalitarian civic societies begin with strong individuals driven by altruism and unselfishness who to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, do not merely see things as they are and lament “Why” but see things as they could be and ask “Why not?”
For many people the introduction to their own powerfulness and to that great “Why not?” came through working, in and for, community. Whatever form that community service took it involved partnership, networking, persuasion, teamwork, it provoked change and it became the key both to self-understanding and a fresh comprehension of this complex entity we call civic society.
I grew up in a home with a profoundly deaf younger brother who sometimes got left out of conversations among the remaining eight of us and who routinely tugged at my elbow saying “Remember me.” It was a challenge to us, to widen our focus and our embrace for by leaving him out we ran the very real risk of skewing all our lives and not just his, of limping along on reduced power as a group.
It is no accident or coincidence that Ireland’s recent unprecedented economic success is built in part on the consensus we managed to achieve through a social partnership which remembered to include the Community and Voluntary Sector alongside the traditional social partners. It is no accident that month in and month out I visit or open new community initiatives from crèches and day care centres, to respite care and social housing, all of which are only possible because radical new alliances have formed between communities, voluntary agencies, government, civil service and business. The evidence is in and mounting that where civil society is effectively mobilised there is a robust social solidarity which makes it easier to cope with the many problems which beset us as individuals, as families and as communities. Decent leadership and self-belief are crucial to the existence of a balanced, functioning civil society just as recognition and inclusion at all levels of decision-making are crucial to the healthy development and intelligent impact of civic society.
The volunteer is at the heart of this phenomenon and in our very busy world the longstanding Irish tradition of voluntarism is under worrying contemporary pressures of time and commitment and cynicism. The Government White Paper on Supporting Voluntary Activity highlights the fact that continuing engagement with civil society, encouraging of active citizenship and increased social dialogue are now key items on our own national agenda. The designation of 2001 by the United Nations as International Year of Volunteers, gave timely recognition to those whose million daily acts of giving are the glue that binds us, the leaven that lifts us, the open palm that holds us safely.
Your debate on civil society is relevant to all of us in the private, public and community and voluntary sectors. Today we know these sectors are part of an interlocking system and not a set of exclusive ring-fenced boxes. We are stronger when these sectors interlock comfortably and easily, when they understand each other’s language, perspectives and preoccupations, when they are not great unsolved mysteries to each other. Civic Society is not merely a collection of spectators, a mass of passive recipients, an absorber of ideas generated elsewhere, but the creative genius behind its own destiny as your conference title strongly suggests.
The Future is Ours – Be the Change, sets us a challenge, a key part of which, involves identifying new and innovative ways of offering opportunities to all members of society to engage meaningfully in decision-making processes which affect their lives. The future can be what we choose to make it. It begins with asserting - remember me. It moves on with being remembered, with having the floor, having the microphone, with making a contribution. History conspired to ensure that the talents of so many of our people were never revealed - not to themselves, not to their families, their streets or their country. We will never know what we lost but we do know that we limped along on one wing. This generation has the opportunity and the resources to build an Ireland that flies on both wings, profoundly enriched by the talents and participation of all. Your work is a very important part of securing that future. I thank you for the care you have for our nation’s well-being and I wish you energy and fulfilment as you make this wheel move from slow turn to spin.
Go raibh maith agaibh.