REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRISH MANAGEMENT
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRISH MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE TUESDAY, 18TH JUNE, 2002
I dtosach báire ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta agus croiúil.
Thank you for your very warm welcome to me this afternoon. My thanks also to Barry Kenny for inviting me back to IMI to join in your 50th Anniversary celebrations marking five decades that have taken us from Ireland of the “ceann faoi” to Ireland of the “can do” culture.
I was still figuring out how to get out of my pram when the founders of this Institute were figuring out how to get Ireland out of the doldrums. The only wind at their backs was the wind of hope and sheer determination for the social and economic landscape they surveyed was bleak indeed. We were a poor country, struggling with a weak and badly structured economy, overly trade dependent on Great Britain, with countless numbers emigrating from our shores in search of modest opportunities unavailable at home.
Today’s story is so different. A successful, prosperous, nation at the heart of the European Union, we export computers not people and poor, struggling countries around the world see in us the image of their own hopes and dreams made real. Now we are a land of opportunity, a place transformed. The courage and foresight and faith of those who founded this Institute is being vindicated daily in this new achieving Ireland.
It has been said that in business, change is the only constant. Indeed the intellectual giant of modern Irish education, John Newman, said "to be human is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often". If that is true then we seem to be on a journey towards a perfection of sorts - the perfection that comes from harnessing a country’s fullest potential, from building civic strength through building resilient, adaptable and confident individuals, from embracing peaceful partnership as the ethic that drives previously historically fraught relationships, from outreaching comfortably to the rest of the world, secure in our talents and capabilities in a competitive and fast moving global market-place.
The level of change this country has absorbed in the fifty years this Institute has been in existence is truly remarkable. The level of change absorbed in the past decade alone is nothing short of phenomenal. The operating climates of business, industry and employment have been radically transformed and a new energy drives this country in the pursuit of ambitious goals, full employment, full social inclusion, a leading edge knowledge based economy, peace on our own doorstep, a small country with a big respected voice in global affairs.
People ask how did we get from “ceann faoi” to “can do? No need to pose that question here. You know the answer. You know the men and women who drove the changes, who took the risks, who gathered and shared the new insights, who stayed when they might have gone to great opportunities elsewhere, who committed themselves to this country and to its people, who never gave up the pursuit of their belief that effective organisation and management were basic building blocks on the road to the new Ireland.
Those people are at the heart of the IMI – this is where you find the champions who helped make modern Ireland a byword for success. There can be no doubt that this Institute’s efforts inspire much of the high calibre leadership which empowers contemporary Irish business to sustain its strong performance. The past and the present give this Institute much to celebrate. The future gives it much to look forward to. It’s a future you are already well prepared for with the development of a wonderful new conference and residential complex.
From ceann faoi to “can do” in fifty years- you have helped bring us from chaos to celebration. You have earned this day. Enjoy it and along with it the thanks of all those who are indebted to you for what you have done not for IMI but for Ireland.
Go raibh maith agaibh.