Speech at a Business Lunch with Enterprise Ireland and the IDA
San Francisco, 27th October 2015
A Dhaoine Uaisle,
Is mór an pléisiúir dom a bheith ar ais anseo i San Francisco. It is a great pleasure to return to the beautiful and historic city of San Francisco, and to have the opportunity to meet here with representatives of business, both American and Irish, in the Bay area. Sabina and I are delighted to join you here today for this event. I am very pleased to be a guest of IDA Ireland which has been active in California for many years and which has been notably successful in bringing the extensive range of Ireland's economic attractions to the attention of American business leaders.
As President of Ireland, I believe that the continuous sustaining and renewing of the ties that bind Ireland to the United States is of the upmost importance. It is an old and enduring connection. These ties have been established over centuries and have continued to develop in each succeeding generation. Ours is a close relationship of kinship and friendship. It is one that both of our peoples dearly value and I know that it will continue to deepen as we now travel, more frequently than ever, between our two countries.
Of course, one of the reasons for this travel is the fact that there are so many successful US firms operating in Ireland and many new Irish firms establishing themselves or expanding in the United States. Some of the major enterprises from the United States are global leaders in the field of digital technology. They include Apple, Facebook, eBay, Google and Twitter. While Ireland has been experiencing a difficult economic period, we are committed to building on the foundations we have developed for a prosperous and sustainable future through investment in the education and training of our young people, our most valuable national resource. We have the largest proportion of young people in the European Union who are qualified graduates and also in terms of their qualifying and proceeding to postgraduate work.
The structural features of the Irish economy are good with growth and employment forecasts revised upwards. This growth will be sustainable and innovation-driven.
Ireland’s energy and determination mirrors California’s in many ways. We have, as I said, a young and highly qualified population, the youngest in Europe, with 40% of our people under the age of 29. Also like California, we are now a much more multicultural, diverse, open and tolerant society.
My own familiarity with this great State over the years has included a particular appreciation of what is possible in the creative industries, including film and theatre. That sector is naturally built around exploring and nurturing good ideas, but it is far from alone in that. Innovation in industry is also powered by creativity, and both flourish in cultures and communities which value a rounded education, the importance of free-thinking and pluralist modes of teaching.
Whatever sector you are in you can derive enormous joy from creative practice, originality, working hard to bring a new reality into being – bringing one’s innovative product or service the full journey from the earliest stage of development to full realisation.
The capacity to invent, which may exist in abundance is not as important as having the edge to create, and tradition and culture are sources of that creativity.
Our students in higher education are pursuing degrees in areas directly relevant to your sectors, with more than one in four studying science or engineering, and a dramatic growth in graduate output in the technology field.
One result of this trend has been the quite remarkable growth of Dublin’s Docklands as a Digital Hub. Apart from the major IT multinationals, many of which have established their European bases in Ireland, a number of indigenous Irish tech start-ups have emerged as key players on the international stage. I have watched with admiration the efforts and achievements of Ireland's young graduates at home and abroad and they give us all great hope for the future.
I welcome all these developments because of the worthwhile careers they offer to young Irish people. Young Irish people are rising to this challenge magnificently. Here in California, they are taking on leadership roles in many industries and creative sectors, and during this visit I have had the opportunity to meet many of them, including at Microsoft in Seattle and at Google here in the Bay Area.
Irish people everywhere have been enormously encouraged by the knowledge that Northern Ireland now enjoys peace. The courageous efforts of so many people over the past two decades are paying substantial dividends for the people of Ireland and of the United Kingdom. The United States has played a most valuable and tremendously positive role in bringing this situation about and has been especially mindful of the importance of economic growth and development as a means of underpinning the significant progress that has been made.
In conclusion, may I thank you all for joining myself and Sabina here today and for all your work in developing partnerships with Ireland, both present and future.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.