REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRIMARY ENCOUNTER AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE PRIMARY ENCOUNTER AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN 10th May, 2000
A chairde, cuireann sé áthas orm agus mo fhear cheile, Mairtín, fáilte a chur romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin innú.
Martin and I would like to welcome you here on this lovely May day to Áras an Uachtaráin. I would first of all like to apologise for taking you away from your schoolwork. I am sure that you would much prefer to be working hard on your Irish or English in your classroom, than be brought all the way up here to the Áras. I promise I will try to match whatever excitement you’re missing back at school and I’ll make sure you get to know about all the homework you have to do this evening!
I’d like to thank you all for making the journey and I want to explain that this year’s Encounter theme is called ‘extending the hand of friendship’. Today I will meet you – we might shake hands or smile at each other. In our own way, we are extending the hand of friendship, making a connection with each other. We all can offer friendship to each other, whether its to a new boy or girl in our class, an elderly neighbour who might be lonely, our disabled brothers and sisters, or to people who are different to us, who might have a different religion, nationality or background.
It is important that we offer friendship to all people, because in extending the hand of friendship, we receive friendship in return. We learn more about our island and our world. We learn that each and every one of us is important and should be valued as the special people we are. Being friendly to others is about being kind to other people. Sometimes it means being brave and courageous – standing up for those who aren’t as strong, refusing to pick on someone because they are different, making friends with those who don’t fit in. Every time you say and do something nice for another person, every time you refuse to accept bad behaviour from someone else, you make a place for goodness and happiness in your heart and in the hearts of those around you. You see, this is your world and you can help make it a better place.
I am looking forward to meeting you this afternoon. I hope you have a wonderful day and that you enjoy the entertainment we have for you today. My thanks to Stephen Holland our MC, and to Simon Toal our balloonist, and Seán O Connor, the Big Bird (character)- our entertainers. But most of all, I hope that each of you will meet as many people as you can, that you make new friends and begin to build your own friendship links today.
Before I come down to meet you, I want to thank your teachers for bringing you here today and for everything they are doing to teach you. By the way I was joking about the homework!
I hope you have a great day here and that you will have happy memories of the day you visited the Áras.
Tá súil agam go mbainfidh sibh taithneamh as an lá. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.