Remarks at the Launch of ‘Up the Republic: Towards a New Ireland’
13th November 2012
I am very grateful to Neil Belton of Faber and Faber his kind introduction, to Professor Luke Drury of the Royal Irish Academy for hosting this occasion and to Fintan O’Toole, the editor of this valuable collection of essays, for inviting me to be here for the launch of this book on important aspects of our lives together now and into the future.
Tréaslaím an leabhar seo leis na húdair – Fintan é féin, Iseult Honohan, Elaine Byrne, Tom Hickey Dearbhail McDonald, Fred Powell, Philip Pettit agus Theo Dorgan. Is mór an onóir dom a bheith bainteach le lainseáil leabhair atá tiomnaithe do Mary Raftery, iriseoir a rinne an oiread sin chun luachanna na Fíor-Phoblachta a chur chun cinn ina cuid scríbhinní.
I congratulate the contributors – Fintan himself, Iseult Honohan, Elaine Byrne, Tom Hickey, Dearbhail McDonald, Fred Powell, Philip Pettit and Theo Dorgan. I am also honoured to be associated with the launch of a book dedicated to the memory of Mary Raftery, a journalist whose work did so much to promote the values of a true Republic.
When Fintan’s invitation was received in my Office, it was considered with the normal due diligence. An initial view was that it was not the “usual practice” for the President to launch books. I commented that perhaps on this occasion it could be regarded as the “unusual practice”.
I do of course understand the rationale underlying the diffidence around book launches. There is always a risk that launching a book could be construed as some form of endorsement of its content. The person in my Office doing the due diligence would, no doubt, have anticipated that a book of essays edited by Fintan O’Toole was unlikely to be a bland read. He may even have feared that association with the book ran the risk of drawing the President into an unusual even unpardonable condition of controversy.
In his own essay in the book, Fintan argues that one of the enabling conditions for an effective Republic is the engagement of obstreperous citizens. That is all very well but the perception of an obstreperous First Citizen might be going too far. Critical awareness and concern after all are ever open categories while obstreperousness has a suggestion that, to some degree, the matter has been decided by those who hold the power of definition.
I am aware that the views expressed in these essays are challenging, robust and critical, and they are all the more valuable for that. Becoming President of Ireland does not require one to recant long held convictions or resile from previously expressed views. But it does demand of the office holder that he or she understands and respects the constitutional boundaries between the different branches of the State. I do so feeling that I have sufficient scope for the necessary critical and, I hope, positive contributions I wish to make.
The main reason I accepted Fintan’s invitation was because, quite apart from the content of these essays, I passionately believe in the importance of public intellectuals engaging in debate and discussions about issues that must be at the heart of our society and democracy. This book contains the valuable contributions of a number of scholars, writers and intellectuals – from the vantage point of different perspectives and disciplines – on the subject of defining, securing and maintaining a real Republic. The fact that the book is an interdisciplinary collaboration makes it all the more valuable.
The readers of the book can form their own judgements on the adequacy of the analyses and prescriptions outlined in the various essays. What cannot be denied is that they all represent thoughtful contributions to the current debate about the future direction of our economy, democracy and society. These contributions are made by writers and public intellectuals who are willing to make an engagement on matters that are urgent, about which there are not sure or certain paths available but which require reflection and debate in the public interest.
Even if the reader disagrees with particular arguments being advanced, the simple act of reading the essays will provoke thought and reflection that goes beyond the commonplace analysis or reactive comment available in the mass media. That in itself is a good outcome.
In my inaugural address a year ago, I said I wanted my tenure as Uachtarán na hÉireann to be a Presidency of Ideas. The crisis that Ireland, along with the rest of Europe, currently faces is not just an economic crisis. It’s also a crisis caused by the failure of ideas; by the failure of models of economy and society and their connection that were often invested with claims of certainty; and by the failure of policy makers and influence formers to adequately challenge prevailing assumptions and models which were regarded as holy writ. The neo-liberal model of unregulated markets, the privatising of the public space and the redirection of active participating citizens with rights to an existence of passive consumers with unlimited needs has exacted a terrible price on our economy and society.
I have just returned from South America where, in a very different context, the rallying cry of those who are determined not to repeat the awful failures of the past is “nunca mas” – never again. There is, I believe, general consensus that never again should we replicate the hubristic mistakes of the Celtic Tiger. By its speculative nature, the Celtic Tiger economy was bound to end in tears. Moreover, the unrestrained individualism delivered in the materialistic values to which it gave rise were not a particularly becoming version of Irishness.
Ní cleachtas reitriciúil atá ann a bheith ag cíoradh ceisteanna na héagothroime agus a hiarmhairtí, ag sealbhú na cothroime i réimse éagsúla an tsaoil agus ag doimhniú an daonlathais. Ardaítear ceisteanna faoin tslí ina mairimid le chéile i dtionscnamh tógála na Fíor-Phoblachta atá fós gan a bheith críochnaithe.
[Debating issues of inequality and its consequences, of securing equality in different areas of life and of deepening democracy is not a rhetorical exercise. It raises issues of how we live with each other in an unfinished project of building a Real Republic.]
The launch of these essays takes place against a backdrop of serious economic hardship for families and communities, growing inequality and poverty for many. The Central Statistics Office has reported that the average income of those in the top twenty per cent of income earners was 5.5 times that of those in the lowest twenty per cent in 2010. In 2009 the ratio was 4.3. In addition, in 2010 23% of the population reported experiencing two or more types of enforced deprivation compared with just over 17.0% in 2009. While 18.6 % of children or one in every six children aged 0-17 were at risk of poverty in 2009, this grew to 19.5% in 2010 – an important, and statistically significant increase.
These are serious obstacles to a genuinely inclusive citizenship; life draining impediments which can erect so many barriers between a citizen and the Republic he or she wishes to engage in. A citizen not afforded the security of a roof over their heads; to feed themselves and their families; to remain within the educational system and achieve their full potential, is a citizen trapped in a cycle of disadvantage, lost opportunity and exclusion; a citizen denied a voice in society.
While there are those who believe that inequality is inevitable or even beneficial within a society, there is now concrete evidence to the contrary. Almost everything, from life expectancy, to levels of mental illness, illiteracy and violence in the community – is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is. Societies with a larger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them including the well off – a more equal society is a healthier society judged by almost every indicator available. It is in the enlightened self interest of all of us to shift the metric of success from the concept of a prosperous society to one of a flourishing society that accommodates and promotes the interests, values and potential of all our citizens.
Modern society faces complex problems that require innovative thinking and flexible responses at national and local level. This is where the vision, the original thinking and the critiques of public intellectuals – such as our distinguished essayists – can make a difference and it takes courage. We need to take stock and consider how we want to live, what it is we want for our society and what we need to do to realise these goals. It is more important than ever that we are willing to envisage, and debate a future for Ireland.
I have stated before my concern at the limited space being made available in the mainstream media and within academic debate for discussion of the options for a better model of economic strategy – one which connects the economy to social policy objectives and the achievement of a flourishing society. I very much share the view of the German philosopher and public intellectual Jurgen Habermas who believes that neo-liberal policies are at the heart of our current crisis. He has written:
“My hope is that the neoliberal agenda will no longer be accepted at face value but will be open to challenge. The whole program of subordinating the lifeworld to the imperatives of the market must be subjected to scrutiny”
Some of the essays in this book provide a forensic indictment of the failure which has impacted so severely on many of our citizens. But the book is not just about cursing the darkness. Many of the contributors understand that a crisis of this severity also represents an opportunity to start again; to renew the Republic; to articulate shared values that allow all our citizens to fully participate in economy and society; to question the paradigms of theory that constrained our policy options; to imagine other possibilities that allow us as a people to move beyond anger, frustration or cynicism.One of the central themes of these essays is the need for the restoration of trust in our institutions and a discussion of how it can be achieved. A key issue for me in this regard is the ethical connection between economy and society and the role of the State in that interconnection. An unregulated market economy operating in an ethical vacuum impoverishes the quality of our lives.
We have come through a period when the dominant model separated economy and society. Economy was seen as the place where it was every person for themselves; it was all about maximising profit and the extent of one’s consumption; and the role of the State was simply to get out of the way. Society, on the other hand, was seen as a mere rhetorical space where equality, solidarity and community were piously acknowledged. Economy and society need to be reconnected through a shared sense of ethics and values so that both operate in the same moral universe. This is an issue which I propose to explore further in a Presidential Seminar on ethics next year.
Philip Pettit refers to what Immanuel Kant called “the crooked timber of mankind” to reject the false promises of both plutocracy and populism. I see the constraints thus identified as limitations of the philosophical method rather than any essential limitation of human possibility or a rejection of utopian thought. So now I have offered a contrarian view to one essayist, and he from County Galway as well.
Finally, one of the lessons from this book of essays is that maintaining a Republic is just as demanding as securing it in the first place. Fintan expresses this very well:
“But a Republic is not a gesture. It is a long-term, open-ended contract. It asks hard questions and makes importunate demands; to be awake, to be alive, to be vigilant, to consider one’s life as being lived not just in the family home and the immediate locality, not just in the workplace and the shopping mall – valid as these arenas may be – but in that tough and potentially wonderful place called the ‘public realm’”.
In that realm, we need reminding that the language that will serve us best is as Theo Dorgan puts it “disciplined language in the register of human passions. Poetry is the living language raised to the power of imagination”.
Déanaim comhghairdeas leis na scríbhneoirí aiste go léir as an gcion tairbhe atá déanta acu maidir leis an tuiscint atá againn ar an réimse poiblí sin agus ar na ceisteanna a chaithfimid a chur san áireamh má tá an Phoblacht seo le hathshamhlú agus le hathbheochan ar mhaithe lenár saoránaigh go léir.
[I congratulate all of the essayists for the contribution they have made to our understanding of the importance of that public realm and of the issues that we need to consider if this Republic is to be re-imagined and renewed in the interests of all our citizens.]Thank you.