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New Ireland - A Cultural and Economic Renaissance Address by THE President OF IRELAND

New Ireland - A Cultural and Economic Renaissance Address by THE President OF IRELAND, Mary Mc Aleese AT Victoria University of

At the outset I would like to thank you for the great honour you have just conferred on me and for the warm words of welcome extended to me and to the entire Irish Delegation by your distinguished Chancellor, Peter Laver. I am also honoured by the presence of the Federal Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, the Honourable David Kemp, whose ancestors came to Australia in 1843 - on the eve of the Great Irish Famine - from the historic County of Tyrone to settle in this beautiful and bountiful State of Victoria.

Victoria is the State to which successive generations of Irish immigrants have come, in large numbers, to make a home and to build their lives anew. It was across this State, on the gold fields of Ballarat, that the Irish led the events which have entered the national democratic legendary of Australia - at the Eureka Stockade - which symbolise what some historians believe to be Ireland’s foremost political legacy to Australia. Much of what took place on that historic morning in Ballarat was embodied in the person of Peter Lalor, whose brother James Fintan Lalor was among the more prominent intellectuals of the Young Ireland Movement. Peter Lalor later became a Minister and subsequently Speaker of the Victorian Parliament. The reform of the franchise, to which the events at the Eureka Stockade were vital, paved the way for another Irishman, Charles Gavan Duffy, to blaze a Parliamentary trail in becoming elected to the first Victorian Parliament under responsible Government and onward to the Premiership of the State of Victoria.

Indeed the pages of the history of Victoria are filled with the names of women and men from Ireland’s two great religious traditions who made their mark in town and country as the builders of both State and Nation. The architecture, monuments and street names of the City of Melbourne are redolent with a sense of Ireland. The towering St Patricks Cathedral; the magnificent Celtic Cross over the grave of John MacSwiney - father of the Irish patriot, Terrence MacSwiney; the statues of Daniel O’Connell and Redmond Barry, as well as the statue which will be unveiled next year to Archbishop Daniel Mannix; Queen’s Hall in the State Library, modelled on the Library at Trinity College Dublin; Bourke Street and Parnell Street; and your Supreme Court Building so reminiscent of Dublin’s Four Courts - all of these testify to the enduring legacy of an intimate relationship between Victoria and Ireland. But our relationship is not simply a treasured memory of a stirring and eventful past - it is a living and thriving reality. Your own Vice Chancellor is one of our most recent gifts from Ireland - as are those vibrant Irish communities across Australia that I have been delighted to greet in the course of this the first State Visit of my Presidency. The many cultural and academic agreements and exchange programmes now in place ensure that thousands of young Irish people come to Australia every year to travel and to work, to experience the reality of this impressive multicultural society, while the sound of many rich Australian accents have become an evermore commonplace feature of life in Dublin and elsewhere across Ireland.

Those young Australians who choose to spend some time in Ireland find themselves in a country which has, in the course of just one generation, undergone a major transformation - a true renaissance - in virtually every aspect of its cultural and economic life. Ireland has developed from a country at the periphery of Europe, into a young, vibrant nation that occupies an important role at the centre of the European Union - the most successful political adventure undertaken by any group of nations in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Economically-speaking, things have never been better. The spectre of emigration that haunted us for generations - centuries even - has been all but banished and the opportunity for self-advancement is finally beginning to become available to all of the people of Ireland. These new realities now feed a strong sense of self-confidence - we are a can-do culture, shoulders back, face out to the world, and in our stride.

The outward manifestations of Ireland's new confidence can be seen everywhere. The economy is one of the strongest anywhere in the world. It has grown by an average of seven percent per annum over the last decade and by more than 60 percent since 1990 - compared with a European average of around 15 percent.

We have established an acknowledged reputation - here in Australia, across much of Asia and in both the United States and Europe - as a profitable location for investment and as a reliable trading partner. A country which was once best known for exporting its people has become an exporter of other goods, most notably in the high technology sector. Ireland is the world's second-largest exporter of computer software after the United States. Two out of every three computer terminals in use in Europe today will have been made in Ireland. In the process we have also grown our own indigenous software companies, many of whom are now locating abroad, some in Australia.

Our economic renaissance is matched by an exhilarating cultural renaissance across every artistic discipline and involving the genius of the global Irish family. The roots which nourish Irish culture are in Boston and Belfast, Dallas and Dublin, London and Limerick, Melbourne and Monaghan.

We have also taken to exporting our arts and our culture. Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, productions such as The Beauty Queen of Leenane, our music - both traditional and modern - our literature and our artists - all of these are signs of a country that can confidently share a rich heritage and celebrate a proud identity as a people.

Of course, none of this happened overnight. We are today benefiting from the hard work of dedicated people over many decades. We are benefiting from the consensus approach to economic and social policy between employers, trade unions, farmers, and both the public and private sectors which has ensured sustainable development and real advances in the wealth of the nation. A lot of the credit for Ireland's economic renaissance must also go to those political leaders - from all sides of the lively political debate in our democracy - who over the years looked to the future and recognised the need for investment in strategic areas and, most notably, in education.

Education is at the heart of what Irish society has become and what it aspires to be in the next millennium. There was a time, not that long ago, when third level education was a luxury restricted mostly to the middle classes. There was little educational meritocracy - those who could afford to study did so, while many other gifted individuals missed out on the opportunity, purely because of their economic circumstances.Since those days Ireland's education system has undergone a process of extensive expansion and transformation. Selection for University and College is now based on academic merit. Maintenance grants have been introduced and fees abolished to encourage all sectors of society to participate in education. The system itself has been expanded new Universities and Institutes of Technology have been established hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent and thousands of additional places created.

The central tenet underlying our philosophy of education has been the desire to invest in the individual, and in doing so, to invest in the future of Irish society as a whole. We recognise that in the global economy of the late 20th century, the development of skills and the realisation by our people of their full potential as complete individuals is as important a source of wealth for the nation as the accumulation of more traditional forms of capital. Time and again creativity and the spirit of enterprise have been identified as the critical sources of economic and social well being in modern society. According to the OECD, the competence of a nation's precious human resources are as important to the success of a state as are other factors, such as the availability of property and capital.

It is this investment in the future of our people - and we have in Ireland Europe’s youngest population - which has been at the very foundation of Ireland's extraordinary economic performance of recent years. In the space of three decades we have managed to transform ourselves into a prosperous modern state. In order to achieve this, in order to attract business, overseas investment and high technology industries to Ireland, we had to provide both the physical infrastructure and skilled talented people to meet the challenges of industrialisation and commercialism. This we managed through 25 years of very significant investment in technological and vocational education, which saw a significant increase in the number of well equipped workshops and other physical facilities in our Institutes of Technology for the training of highly skilled crafts persons and technicians. No other European country spends as much as we do on education. We don’t begrudge a penny of it. It has repaid our faith over and over again.

Eventually a measure of prosperity, so long restricted to the relatively few, has come within the reach of many. For this reason, this new generation in Ireland bears a particular responsibility, not only to share the wealth of the nation, but also to ensure that the benefits and progress of today will be used to the advantage of those generations that are still to come. In the hard days when we had very little we shared it with a generosity and selflessness which were legendary. That baton of caring and sharing is one we take seriously - prosperity must enhance us humanly, must deepen our care.

Ireland has achieved a respected reputation across the international community. Dublin has become the second most popular city destination in Europe after Paris. In summer the streets teem with tourists enjoying the lifestyle and hospitality of the city and of the countryside beyond. Our status is remarkable given the size of our island, with its population of just more than five million. It is our responsibility to ensure we maintain that status and that we further enhance it. Equally, we must ensure that we do not jeopardise our economic future through complacency during the present good times. It would be all too easy to sit back, to live for the moment, and to assume that the status quo will continue indefinitely. That would be a mistake. Nothing gained happened by accident or serendipity. It is built on the backs of those who had nothing, who had only hope in their children. It is built on the loneliness of emigration. It has been hard earned, worked for by selfless people, constructed by visionaries. To sustain and secure it will take very hard work and commitment.

As an educationalist, I have a personal interest in the role that education has played in Ireland's economic transformation, as well as the part it will play in ensuring our future. A crucial challenge will be for us to ensure that our education system is able to respond to changing needs and fresh priorities. We are already faced with the prospect of skill shortages in vital areas of the economy and it is important for all of Irish society that our education system continues to adapt to the needs of sustainable long-term development.

I know that efforts are already being made to address this area. Extra places have been created at third level and work is being done to attract people back into education. There is a concerted effort to facilitate the return of those members of our world wide family who have skills that can contribute to the continued growth of the new Ireland. Indeed, it is heartening to see that many thousands of people who had been required, through lack of opportunity, to emigrate to the rest of Europe, to the United States, to Australia and elsewhere, are returning. Perhaps most startling for those acquainted with our history, young highly trained and highly skilled people from other parts of the European Union and elsewhere are choosing to make their lives in Ireland, attracted not only by our economic circumstances, but also by our way of life and by the relaxed relationship we have with one another. This seismic shift has forced us to look at ourselves very differently, to move out from the shadow of sadness engendered by emigration and to embrace a radically changed and changing Ireland – an Ireland whose talent is unlocked and is transforming the face of the earth.

Our full and dedicated participation in the process of European integration, has been a strategic objective of successive Irish governments. Ireland's experience of the past 25 years has shown that this participation has not only been central to the transformation of our economy but has enhanced our role in the international community. This will receive another boost with the introduction of the Euro, the single European currency, from 1 January 1999. Out of a total of 15 Member States, 11, including Ireland, will adopt the Euro from the beginning of next year - and, at least in the initial state, Ireland will be the only English speaking country in the new Euro currency zone.

The establishment of the Euro will yield significant further benefits. Membership offers Ireland the prospect of stable economic conditions, based on price stability, as part of the wider European economy. The adoption of the Euro will consolidate the gains already achieved through the Single Market and will lead to the creation of a large and liquid financial market, which will be similar in size to the US domestic market.

We are not - and must not be - complacent. Our strong development and economic achievements have to be consolidated. There are important challenges as well as great opportunities in the way forward. Just two weeks before I left for Australia there was the harrowing and horrible outrage of Omagh and the suffering of a people who prayed and worked and voted for peace. It is the historic challenge of all of us - and not just of our political leaders although we have entrusted them with a special responsibility - to ensure that the hope born of the Good Friday Agreement will not be disappointed. I am confident that it will not. I am confident that the courageous political leadership that negotiated the Good Friday Agreement will not be deflected from the magnitude of the task that lies ahead - for there remains, above all, a confidence and a determination that we are at the edge of a new era in our history. The way we collectively handled Omagh – united in grief and determination to keep building consensus - that gives us real hope for the future. May I say at this point how much we in Ireland appreciate the support of successive Australian Governments and the Australian people for our effects resolve the problem of Northern Ireland, culminating in the Good Friday Agreement. It is important for us to know that we can count on your goodwill and support in the future, as we attempt to banish division and build a new, peaceful Ireland, at ease with itself and taking its rightful place in the world.

Chancellor, distinguished guests,

We live in times of unprecedented challenge and change - in times of unparalleled hope and optimism. We are part of an international revolution in the way we communicate and process information. But if we are not to be overwhelmed by change we will need the support of certain enduring values which the University, perhaps more than any other secular institution, is committed to uphold and to promote - the open interplay of argument and discussion, the critical approach to convictions and to concepts, a passion for new ideas and a commitment to truth as well as a fearlessness in expressing it. But we will also need to listen carefully as we define our priorities for a new century. We must learn from the lessons of the past and ensure that future generations are not schooled in suspicion or fear but rather in compassion, tolerance and enlightenment. For they will need, as we do, to write bravely and to speak sincerely in the promotion of social justice and human rights, in the cause of fundamental values and in the advancement of a compassionate and caring civilisation.

It was Alan Kay, the father of personal computing, who said: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. In essence, that is what we in Ireland have attempted to do. As far back as the late 1960s, people of vision, in every area of our national life, began to plan for the future and to chart the course for where Ireland should be by the end of the century. They began a process of reinvention, looking beyond the Ireland that had existed in the 1950s, and that still carried the heavy burdens of the past. Our entry into the Common Market, now the European Union, acted as a catalyst to that process, helping us to find our feet as an independent state with the same rights and responsibilities within the larger European context as countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Now, a quarter of a century on, the dream is being realised. We are young, educated and self-confident. We know what we have to offer the world and what the world can offer us. The dogmas and difficulties that we have borne throughout our history are now seen in a new light, as part of our heritage, not forgotten, but seen in a new context.

Ireland has a unique opportunity to safeguard the future for all of its people and I am pleased to tell you that the will and the confidence exist to ensure that we cherish it and that we develop it to the fullest. The great champion of Irish University education Cardinal John Henry Newman said it all when he told us ‘To be human is to change – to be perfect is to have changed often’.

Thank you.