Speech on the Ireland-Wales Programme/INTERREG Programme
Swansea University, Wales, 28th October 2014
Minister Hutt,
A chairde daora na hÉireann agus na Breataine Bige,
Annwyl Gyfeillion,
Dear friends of Ireland and Wales,
Is mór an phléisiúir dom é a bheith anseo, ar mo chéad chuairt ar an Bhreatain Bheag mar Uachtarán na hÉireann.
[It is a great pleasure for me to be here, on what is my first visit to Wales as President of Ireland.]
On behalf of the people of Ireland, Wales’s sister to the West, I thank you most sincerely for your warm and generous welcome.
What better place than Swansea – which Dylan Thomas praised in his letters as, I quote, “marble-town, city of laughter, little Dublin”[1] – to evoke the profusion of links, the rich history and culture, and the shared hopes for the future, that bind us together?
The ties between Ireland and Wales flow from our common maritime border – the sea, Muir Éireann, Môr Iwerddon],that both divides and unites us. The sea that has inspired song, myth and story in both our nations. The waves on whose crests so many have travelled over the centuries – migrants, merchants, mercenaries and monks.
Ireland and Wales have been linked since Mesolithic times, as is attested by the remains of the first settlers and the evidence of their coastal settlements that are found on islands and in sand dunes around the Irish Sea.
Indeed, the very name of the Irish race has a mysterious connection with Wales, and scholars of Celtic studies theorise about whether the Welsh word for “Irishman”, Gwyddel, is a derivative of the Old Irish term Goídel,[2] or if Goídel is a derivative of Gwyddel.
Whatever the etymology, suffice to say that Ireland and Wales are siblings – so long together, we no longer need to argue who is older and who is younger. Our interaction has been constant and, at times, intense.
The patron saint of the Irish, Patrick, travelled from Wales to Ireland with his message, whilst less welcome visitors were the invading Norman Lords led by Richard de Clare, the Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow.
At the time of our Great Famine, an Gorta Mór, in the mid-19th century, tens of thousands of Irish men, women and children arrived at the ports of South Wales after travelling as ballast in the holds of coal ships that returned with human cargo from Irish ports.
Later still, Irish people travelled in great numbers to work in the mines, steelworks, docks and quarries of Wales.
On behalf of my country, I thank the Welsh people for their friendship in times of need as well as in times of prosperity.
Our two peoples share an impressive historical and cultural heritage, and both today cherish and cultivate a singular and beautiful Celtic language. As fellow-citizens of the European Union, the Welsh and the Irish also share aspirations towards living fulfilling lives in cohesive societies, where good jobs are available to all, and communities enabled to thrive in harmony with their natural environment.
The EU’s INTERREG Territorial Co-operation objective, through its various ‘transnational’, ‘crossborder’ and ‘interregional’ programmes, is an important tool towards the achievement of such aspirations. For two decades now, it has fostered the coming together of local authorities, universities, businesses, and all sectors of society, around projects of mutual interest – projects that benefit our people on both shores of the Irish Sea.
The ethos underpinning INTERREG Territorial Co-operation is that national borders should not be an obstacle to the balanced development and integration of the European territory, and that, coupled with Cohesion Policy, the Single Market can be a strong catalyst for advancing cross-border co-operation.
Ours, as I have already mentioned, is a maritime border. Indeed, today as always, the Irish Sea forms a unifying link throughout the Co-operation Programme area, playing a crucial role as the main access point for both people and goods travelling from Ireland and Britain, and thereon to the Continental market – and vice versa.
Of course the physical and institutional aspects of cooperation across a maritime border present challenges and opportunities that are very different from those arising from cooperation around land borders. As vital links between our islands, ports and sea routes are of strategic importance to us, as is the respectful and careful management of our maritime and underwater resources.
Groups such as the Central Sea Corridor, which focuses on transport links between the two islands, and the Irish Sea Forum, which concentrates on environmental issues, paved the way for the formation of the “Irish Sea Partnership.”
As all of you here are well aware, this Partnership formed the basis for the inclusion of the Ireland-Wales maritime area in the first 1994-1999 INTERREG Territorial Co-operation Programme – a programme that has raised cooperation between our two nations to a new level.
I need not remind this particular audience of how the two successor programmes, for the periods 2000-2006 and 2007-2013, provided a most valuable framework that further enhanced our co-operation on the common challenges we face.
They also embedded a culture of working together between our local authorities and civil societies, and I wish to avail of this occasion to salute and congratulate all those involved in making this cross-border cooperation flourish –members and staff of the Southern & Eastern Regional Assembly and of the Welsh Funding Office; civil servants at national and European level; researchers in Irish and Welsh universities; social partners; businesses and representatives of civil society organisations.
Thanks to your work, dedication and vision, the new Ireland-Wales Territorial Co-operation Programme for the period 2014-2020, recently submitted to the European Commission,[3] can build on many successes and on already powerful partnerships.
I am assured that Minister Hutt will agree with me as I say that both Ireland and Wales greatly value and are firmly committed to our crossborder cooperation. From the high quality, collaborative projects that are spotlighted today, one can understand why.
I applaud the energy and sheer intellect that fuels these projects, and I wish to personally thank the scholars and researchers who have travelled to join us in this beautiful room at Swansea University.
We laymen and laywomen, Irish and Welsh, must thank you a billion[4] times over for projects such as, for example, the Celtic Alliance for Nano-health – a collaboration between Swansea University, Trinity College Dublin, the University College of Dublin, and Dublin City University – and for the attention that you give to issues that are both microscopic and enormously important.
I know that the 2014-2020 programme, like its predecessor, will build upon the positive experiences gained to date and will broaden and deepen the relationship between our two great nations. I am delighted to see that climate change and the protection of our natural and cultural resources feature prominently in this new programme’s objectives. These are indeed issues which we must tackle head-on, without waiting for a predictable disaster, and we must do so through a mobilisation of the creativity, science and ethical sense of our people.
At our best in Europe we have seen how a healthy balance between economic competitiveness and social and territorial cohesion can achieve prosperity and harmony. The framework and instruments provided by the INTERREG programme are a great resource as we seek a model of economic development that serves agreed social aims and is grounded in a responsible and respectful relation to our natural environment.
We should never forget that the single market and cohesion policy were launched almost simultaneously in the mid-1980s, and that the cohesion policy was conceived by the then President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, as a vital counterpart to the “four freedoms” associated with the single market.
I believe that we, in Ireland and Wales, must retain the spirit of solidarity and commonality that underpinned this “Cohesion pact” – the concern for the welfare our citizens, seen not as transferrable “units of labour” but as persons engaged in active relationships with others and rooted in singular social, cultural and territorial communities.
May I say, once again, how delighted I am to be in Wales, and here in Swansea. May we continue, as next door neighbours and proud Celtic nations, to compete on the rugby pitch; and, as kindred spirits, to celebrate the friendship that unites us and the many great things we can achieve together.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.
[1] Dylan Thomas, The Collected Letters, ed. Paul Ferris, Dent 1985, p. 435.
[2] Which gave the word “Gael” in Modern Irish.
[3] On 22nd September 2014.
[4] A “nano” is a factor of one-billioneth.