REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB, SAN FRANCISCO TUESDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER, 1999
"Ireland: Towards A New Era"
Tá áthas an domhain orm bheith anseo libh inniu. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh uile de bharr an fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
It is a great pleasure for me to come here to talk with you today as President of Ireland and I would like to thank you very much for the very warm welcome you have afforded me.
Over the past few days during this, my first official visit to the West Coast of America, I have had the opportunity to speak with many people of the remarkable social and economic transformation that we in Ireland have undergone in the space of a single generation. Some of you, old friends of Ireland, will no doubt be very familiar with our story - you will know where we are coming from, and have already a good idea of where we are at. But others, our newer friends, may be interested in hearing of these remarkable changes - changes which, as I see daily in my work as President, have brought about an Ireland alive with hope and buzzing with a sense of infinite possibility.
We have seen our economy grow in leaps and bounds, bringing an unfamiliar but welcome prosperity to our country. We have seen a remarkable burgeoning in cultural energy and confidence among our people. Most significantly, perhaps, we have within our grasp, a unique opportunity to create a real and lasting peace on the island of Ireland.
These developments have not only brought with them great opportunity for our people, they have also confronted us with a great many new challenges. And, as we reach out to embrace change, it is vital that we allow ourselves the time and space to pause to reflect on the implications that such change will hold for our society and for our values as a people:
As a country racing ahead economically, we must ensure that all of our people can benefit, that we do not allow some to prosper while others lag behind in their slipstream;
In promoting and celebrating ourselves and our culture, we must keep ourselves open and alive to diversity, recognising the contribution that those with different cultures can make to the creation of a vibrant and dynamic Ireland.
In celebrating the achievement of the Good Friday Agreement, we must remember the difficult and painstaking work that it will take to see its full potential realised and the responsibility that each of us has to help to bring about reconciliation and lasting peace in Ireland.
These are real challenges - ones we should not shirk - but nonetheless we in Ireland face into the much-hyped new Millennium full of hope, ambition and confidence, refreshed and ready for the road ahead. If I might, therefore, I would like to share with you something of our story and how we have come to find ourselves in such a fortunate position.
The tale of our recent economic success has been told many times, but it remains nonetheless a truly remarkable one.
Ireland, today still a young country by international standards, was at the time of its independence in 1922 an agricultural country with a weak economy. We were almost entirely dependent for trade on our nearest neighbour, Britain. As we set to the task of building a new state, we focussed our gaze inwards. We believed that in following a policy of economic protectionism we could build up our industry. We were more comfortable with old certainties than with new challenges, convincing ourselves that, in a turbulent and changing world, we could best survive by cocooning ourselves against the outside.
We were wrong.
Like much of the world, in the 1960s Ireland began to experience an awakening. We started to accept that the opportunities that lay beyond our shores were not to be feared. That isolation, far from securing our future and protecting our economic and social interests, was inflicting considerable damage both on our economy, which did not thrive, and on our people. For decades we saw many bright young people leave Ireland, to seek elsewhere the economic security that they could not achieve for themselves and their families at home.
A great many of them, of course, sought a new life here in the United States and came to play an important role, not only in this country, but also back in Ireland where their continued interest, not to mention their substantial monetary contribution, played an important role in our modernisation. Those of us who were fortunate to have been able to stay at home remain ever grateful for this inestimable contribution. They extended the boundaries of the parish of Ireland to every part of the globe, opening up a vista at home to the possibilities which a courageous engagement with that wide world could bring to a struggling young country.
While, as I have said, Ireland began to look outward and to seek a real engagement with the world outside in the 1960s, the key to our future economic success was truly created when, in 1973, we joined what was then the European Economic Community. In international terms, it opened up vast new market opportunities and made Ireland an attractive location for foreign investment, especially by high-tech American companies.
They were attracted not only by our location, but also by the highly educated and skilled workforce we had to offer. In the 1960s, in a far-sighted decision which did much to lay the foundations of our later economic success, access to free second level education was opened up to all of our people. In doing so, opportunity was provided to a wider range of Irish people than had ever known it before. A huge reservoir of untapped talent and energy was released.
This unprecedented opportunity has, perhaps, made its most significant mark on the lives of Irish women. Particularly since Ireland joined the EEC, women have been breaking out of the old social and cultural moulds which restricted their contribution to the private and domestic sphere. Irish women seized, with enthusiasm, new opportunities for education, employment and self-advancement. We now play an important role in all areas of Irish life - business, sport, culture, politics and public life. The major beneficiary has, of course, been Ireland. No country, no institution in my view, can expect to realise more than half of its potential if it draws on only half of its resources.
A healthy civic society is one in which all of its members are enabled and encouraged to engage in decision-making processes - and that engagement only comes through everyone feeling that they hold a stake in society and in its successes. A healthy economy is one which unlocks the talents and energies of all of its people - allowing them to develop to their fullest potential. A healthy social framework is one in which every individual is valued. Such social inclusion will be vital if Ireland is to continue to grow and to develop in the years ahead.
The opening up of Ireland to the world beyond our shores has had many benefits which extend well beyond the purely economic. In particular, our engagement in Europe - where we play a role as a small but well-respected member of a community of equals - has given us a new found sense of confidence in ourselves and in our abilities. Our heritage and our culture, far from being submerged by other dominant European cultures, have blossomed and have come to be greatly valued by our European friends.
Ireland’s cultural influence extends beyond Europe. Never before has our culture reached such a wide and appreciative audience throughout the world. Never before have our musicians and artists gained so much through their discourse with other cultures. Never before have we ourselves attached such importance to our cultural inheritance. For many years our traditional music, language, folklore and dance were in danger of being lost and forgotten, inextricably linked in the minds of many of our young people with a poor, rural past which seemed to have little relevance for the new, more affluent and more urban world which we wished to join.
We have now, I hope, come to realise that the old can sit perfectly comfortably with the new - that indeed they have much to learn from each other. When we go out into the world, we do so with a new sense of pride in our traditions and with a profound appreciation for their value and worth. Our artists, traditional and modern alike, are now acclaimed both in Ireland and throughout the world.
While we are fortunate to face the future with many advantages, our greatest hope must be, however, that after much pain, prayer and political effort it will be a future holding not just prosperity for our people, but a future lived in peace.
The peace process in which we in Ireland have been engaged has, I firmly believe, offered us the greatest opportunity we have ever known to realise that hope, to overcome the tragic divisions of our past and to commit ourselves to the building of a new future together.
The Good Friday Agreement, reached in April of last year by Northern Ireland political parties of all backgrounds - Nationalist and Unionist, Loyalist and Republican - together with the British and Irish Governments and with the support and encouragement of our friends throughout the world, offered us a vision of a future:
A future where we committed ourselves to the peaceful and democratic resolution of our differences;
A future where partnership, equality and mutual respect will form the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland, between the North and the South and between the islands of Britain and Ireland;
A future where we undertook to vindicate and protect the human rights of all of our people, where we would dedicate ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust.
The Good Friday Agreement was an historic breakthrough - a breakthrough that many had hardly dared hope was possible. It brought with it a great wave of euphoria and it received the overwhelming endorsement of the people of Ireland, North and South, historically voting together on the same day.
But as it took slow, careful and painstaking work for the parties to reach agreement - it took two long and difficult years of negotiation, and all sides had to find within themselves the courage to build consensus and to compromise - it will take slow and careful work to deliver its full potential.
Great progress has been made in many areas - we have a new Human Rights Commission for Northern Ireland, a new Equality Commission. An Assembly has been elected by the people. A Review has been carried out into the future of policing in Northern Ireland and into the Criminal Justice System.
But we have also, inevitably, experienced difficulties and disappointments.
It has not yet proved possible to generate the trust and confidence between the parties necessary for the core institutional aspects of the Agreement to be put in place. An inclusive Executive to which power can be devolved and which would bring together Ministers from our different political traditions has yet to be formed.
As we speak, intensive efforts are underway under the expert and wise stewardship of that great friend to Ireland, Senator George Mitchell, to seek to find an agreed way forward. I am sure that you will join with me in wishing the parties engaged in these efforts every success in their endeavour.
Despite our difficulties, and despite the sometimes slow progress, I remain confident that in the long run we will succeed in realising all that the Agreement has to offer. There is, I am absolutely convinced, no desire among the people of Northern Ireland to return to the dark days of violence and to the pain and hurts of the past. As President, I meet with people from all backgrounds, from all traditions, as I go about my work. Every day I see the extraordinary longing of the people for a life lived in peace together and every day I see little miracles inching their way slowly towards a new, happier future.
They know that such a future can only be brought about through compromise and accommodation. They want their politicians to deliver it to them. No question, there is much work to be done. But there are many, many people of goodwill willing to put their shoulder to the wheel.
When I visit the United States I am always very conscious of how much you have done to advance the cause of peace in Ireland and how much we in Ireland are in your debt for having done so. When the history of the peace process in Ireland comes to be written it will, rightly, record that when Ireland needed a friend, it could always count on President Bill Clinton. It will record the determination of leading figures from both parties in Congress, the Senate and at state level, to offer whatever assistance they could to ensure that the process could succeed. It will record the extraordinary role played by Senator George Mitchell, who continues to give so unstintingly of his time and wisdom to help the parties in Northern Ireland reach agreement among themselves. It will record the role of US business which, through its commitment to investment, offered people the hope of a better, more normal life.
Most importantly, it will record the extraordinary commitment of the friends of Ireland throughout the United States to the cause of peace and justice in Ireland. This friendship, support and encouragement has meant a great deal to us and I am pleased today to have had this opportunity to thank you on behalf of the people of Ireland.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The world in which we live grows ever smaller. The pace of change seems to increase, the pressures of life to grow. We in Ireland are not unique in being faced both with tremendous opportunity and remarkable challenge. But I hope that, as we move into a new and exciting era in our history, we will show the world that it is possible to build a future based firmly on the foundations of all that is best about our past. That we can continue to be nurtured and sustained by the values that nurtured and sustained us through poorer, darker days. Values of family and of friendship. Values of kindness and of caring. It is a challenge not only to Ireland, but to the world.