SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CREDIT UNIONS’ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CREDIT UNIONS’ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY, KILLARNEY
Tá mé thar a bheith sásta bheith anseo libh inniu agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin.
It gives me great pleasure to join you in Killarney today for the World Council of Credit Unions’ International Conference and Annual General Assembly. A special thank you to Arthur Arnold, President of the Council and your Vice-Chairman, Gerry Foley, for the kind invitation which allows me to be part of this very special gathering. Among us are delegates who have travelled to this beautiful part of Ireland from over 25 countries. Some are visiting us for the very first time. Others have been here before and are paying us the great compliment of coming back for more and of course there are a few who have arrived from just up the road. To each and every one of you I offer a great Irish “Cead Mile Fáilte” – a hundred thousand welcomes. I compliment you on your choice of venue - Killarney, it seems has a timeless allure. Twenty-five years ago my husband and I chose this place for our honeymoon and you will be delighted to hear we were then very active members of the Credit Union movement! In fact if I remember correctly without the Credit Union we would not have had a honeymoon at all!
I was particularly pleased to receive the League’s invitation because this is an organization I have had the greatest respect and affection for since I first signed up in the early 1960’s. I know the difference it has made to people’s lives, the chances it has given them, the respect it has shown to its members. Today I have a welcome opportunity to acknowledge and pay special tribute to a movement which, both in an Irish context and internationally, occupies a unique place in the world of financial services. That place is community.
I remember the excitement with which my parish started its first credit union over thirty years ago. We sat in a draughty parish hall counting pennies and halfpennies, fired by the vision of harnessing the modest economic power of people in poor communities and turning it into a partnership which would transform their future. The Credit Union movement in Ireland has itself been transformed in the intervening years and the measure of its success at home and world-wide is its ability to prosper, to remain relevant, to remain rooted in community and in the empowerment of the individual, in a highly competitive money market place.
There is no doubt these are exciting, even heady times to be in business in the financial services industry. The enormous changes in technology, the insatiable demands of the public for better and better service, for more sophisticated facilities, these impose pressures and disciplines on all service providers. But they impose particular challenges to your organisation with its unique ethos and structure as a community based facility run by members, for members. I am sure many wondered whether that structure would be robust enough to withstand the pressures and they must be very heartened today to see how the Credit Union movement has embraced this world of changes, constantly evolving to keep pace with modern developments and innovative high-tech support services.
It is very reassuring that your work has not been overwhelmed by these relentless pressures but rather the opposite and as your self-confidence has grown so too has the confidence of communities which have been civically strengthened by the opportunities you have opened up to the individuals, the families who make up our communities.
Some years ago when my daughter was small she won a local credit union art competition. The picture was no Goya and it certainly did not indicate a latent artistic genius but it was a picture crafted by a child who had lived with the Credit Union as part of her life and it was interesting to see how, unprompted, she responded when translating her experience onto paper. She had drawn a series of cameos - a bill paid, a new washing machine, a holiday, a student off to college, a small business started, a car, a common fund, a helping hand. The bits and pieces of an everyday life made easier, made better by neighbour helping neighbour in this specific and practical way. The Credit Union movement is not and never has been about rocket science but about the simplest and the most profound human psychology - wrapped up in an old Irish saying - Ní neart go cur le chéile – unity is strength.
That unity works within the Credit Union movement at many different levels. It allows the money we save no matter how modest to work much more effectively when it is added to the savings of others. It returns that gathered resource as a new source of power to the community. It shows the individual the value of the discipline of saving and it instills a spirit of community responsibility which is fully compatible with the self-interest of the individual.
We have a great mix of people here today. You come from all parts of the globe, all walks of life. Most of you are strangers to each other but you have much in common for each of you believes so strongly in community that you commit to it, you do the work of community building so essential to a healthy and happy civic life. Today’s International Conference and Assembly in this the International Year of the Volunteer is a tribute to those volunteers who have committed their time and energies to transforming their own lives, the lives of friends and neighbours, the life of the local community. The Credit Union movement worldwide could not have realised success without the commitment and dedication of countless voluntary workers and members – people who display a true spirit of mutual co-operation, self-help and determination to continuously strive for the economic and social well-being of ordinary citizens worldwide.
In Ireland, we are privileged to live in a time of unprecedented prosperity – witnessing the tide of emigration turn, the spectre of unemployment fade, the recognition of Ireland as a great success story. But, as in many countries, there is another Ireland within our shores where the reality of daily life is a far cry from prosperity, where hope in the future is hard to find.
I congratulate the World Council of Credit Unions for offering that hope for making the concept of credit and borrowing available to those whose circumstances often make access to the commercial banking system very difficult. For many it has meant the difference between existence and living. Fundamentally Credit Union is about inclusion, about giving people more effective control over how they live their lives and how they realize their ambitions. You have long since believed that by empowering the individual, helping him or her to become self-confident and strong, we empower communities and release the full genius of our greatest natural resource which is the human person.
This is the future you are helping to build, a future where that genius and talent will not be wantonly wasted through lack of resources, lack of opportunity or the powerlessness of poverty. It is a future worth looking forward to, one to take pride in.
I congratulate the World Council of Credit Unions for their success in spreading the spirit of mutual co-operation, putting people’s needs first and helping to build a humanly decent more equitable world. May you go from strength to strength.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.