19 February 2013, Dublin, Ireland
I begin today’s debate by thanking Dr Martin McAleese and his team for their excellent work on this report.
I thank equally all the women who met with them to assist in its compilation. I also thank the religious orders who cooperated fully with Dr. McAleese.
Together they have helped provide Ireland with a document of truth.
The Magdalene laundries have cast a long shadow over Irish life over our sense of who we are.
It’s just two weeks since we received this report: the first-ever detailed Report into the State’s involvement in the Magdalene Laundries.
It shines a bright and necessary light on a dark chapter of Ireland’s history.
On coming to office the Government was determined to investigate the facts of the State’s involvement.
The government was adamant that these ageing and elderly women would get the compassion and the recognition for which they have fought for so long deserved so deeply and had, until now, been so abjectly denied.
The reality is that for 90 years Ireland subjected these women and their experience to a profound and studied indifference.
I was determined because of this that this Government – this Dáil – would take the necessary time not just to commission the Report but to actually study it and having done so to reflect on its findings.
I believe that was the best way to formulate a plan and strategy that would help us make amends for the State’s role in the hurt of these extraordinary women.
I’m glad that so many of the women themselves agreed with that approach.
And I’m glad that this time of reflection gave me the chance to do the most important thing of all: to meet personally with the Magdalene Women. To sit down with them, face to face, to listen to their stories.
It was a humbling and inspiring experience.
Today, as their Taoiseach, I am privileged to welcome some of these women to this House many of whom have travelled long distances to be here.
I warmly welcome you every one of you to your national parliament, to Dail Eireann.
What we discuss today is your story. What we address today is how you took this country’s terrible ‘secret’ and made it your own. Burying it carrying it in your hearts here at home, or with you to England and to Canada America and Australia on behalf of Ireland and the Irish people.
But from this moment on you need carry it no more. Because today we take it back. Today we acknowledge the role of the State in your ordeal.
We now know that the State itself was directly involved in over a quarter of all admissions to the Magdalene Laundries.
Be it through the social services reformatories psychiatric institutions county homes the prison and probation service and industrial schools.
In fact we have decided to include all the Magdalene women in our response regardless of how they were admitted.
Dr McAleese set out to investigate five areas in particular;
1: The routes by which the women entered the laundries
2: Regulations of the workplace and State inspections
3: State funding of and financial assistance to the laundries
4: The routes by which the girls and women left the laundries
5: Death registrations, burials and exhumations
In all five areas there was found to be direct State involvement.
As I read this Report and as I listened to these women, it struck me that for generations Ireland had created a particular portrait of itself as a good living God-fearing nation.
Through this and other reports we know this flattering self-portrait to be fictitious.
It would be easy to explain away all that happened – all we did in those great moral and social salves of ‘the culture back then’ = the ‘order of the day’, ‘the terrible times that were in it’.
Yes, by any standards it was a cruel, pitiless Ireland distinctly lacking in a quality of mercy. That much is clear, both from the ages of the Report, and from the stories of the women I met.
As I sat with these women as they told their stories it was clear that while every woman’s story was different each of them shared a particular experience of a particular Ireland judgemental intolerant petty and prim.
In the laundries themselves some women spent weeks others months more of them years. But the thread that ran through their many stories was a palpable sense of suffocation not just physical in that they were incarcerated but psychological .spiritual social. Their stories were enriched by an astonishing vividness of recall of situation and circumstance.
Here are some of the things I read in the report and they said directly to me:
“The work was so hard, the regime was cruel.”
“I felt all alone, nobody wanted me.”
“They sent me because they thought I was going to a good school.”
“I seen these older people beside me, I used cry myself to sleep.”
“I was bold, I wasn’t going to school.”
“I was locked up I thought I would never get out.”
“We had to sew at night even when we were sick.”
“I heard a radio sometimes in the distance.”
“We were not allowed to talk to each other.”
“Your letters were checked.”
“I was so short I needed a stool to put washing in.”
“The noise was desperate.”
“I thought I would go mad from the silence.”
“The heat was unbelievable.”
“I broke a cup once and had to wear it hanging around my neck for three days.”
“I felt always tired always wet .always humiliated.”
“My father came for me after three months but I was too ashamed to go home.”
“I never saw my Mam again she died while I was in there.”
The Magdalene Women might have been told that they were washing away a wrong or a sin but we know now and to our shame they were only ever scrubbing away our nation’s shadow.
Today, just as the State accepts its direct involvement in the Magdalene Laundries society too has its responsibility.
I believe I speak for millions of Irish people all over the world when I say we put away these women because .for too many years we put away our conscience.
We swapped our personal scruples for a solid public apparatus that kept us in tune and in step with a sense of what was ‘proper behaviour’ or the ‘appropriate view’ according to a sort of moral code that was fostered at the time particularly in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
We lived with the damaging idea that what was desirable and acceptable in the eyes of the Church and the State was the same and interchangeable.
Is it this mindset then this moral subservience that gave us the social mores the required and exclusive ‘values’ of the time that welcomed the compliant, obedient and lucky ‘us’ and banished the more problematic, spirited or unlucky ‘them’?
And to our nation’s shame it must be said that if these women had managed to scale the high walls of the laundries they’d have had their work cut out for them to negotiate the height and the depth of the barricades around society’s ‘proper’ heart. For we saw difference as something to be feared and hidden rather than embraced and celebrated.
But were these our ‘values’?
Because we can ask ourselves for a State – least of all a republic.
What is the ‘value’ of the tacit and unchallenged decree that saw society humiliate and degrade these girls and women?
What is the ‘value’ of the ignorance and arrogance that saw us publicly call them ‘Penitents’ for their ‘crime’ of being poor or abused or just plain unlucky enough to be already the inmate of a reformatory, or an industrial school or a psychiatric institution?
We can ask ourselves as the families we were then what was worthy what was good about that great euphemism of ‘putting away’ our daughters our sisters our aunties ?
Those ‘values’ those failures those wrongs characterised Magdalene Ireland.
Today we live in a very different Ireland with a very a different consciousness awareness – an Ireland where we have more compassion empathy insight heart.
We do because at last we are learning those terrible lessons. We do because at last we are giving up our secrets.
We do because in naming and addressing the wrong, as is happening here today, we are trying to make sure we quarantine such abject behaviour in our past and eradicate it from Ireland’s present and Ireland’s future.
In a society guided by the principles of compassion and social justice there never would have been any need for institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries.
The Report shows that the perception that the Magdalene Laundries were reserved for what were offensively and judgementally called “fallen women” is not based upon fact at all but upon prejudice. The women are and always were wholly blameless.
Therefore, I, as Taoiseach, on behalf of the State, the government and our citizens deeply regret and apologise unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them, and for any stigma they suffered, as a result of the time they spent in a Magdalene Laundry.
I hope that the publication of the McAleese Report and this apology makes some contribution to the healing process.
But in reflecting on this Report I have come to the view that these women deserve more than this formal apology, important though it is. I also want to put in place a process by which we can determine how best to help and support the women in their remaining years.
One of the many things I have learned during my recent meetings with these women is that their circumstances and current needs vary greatly from person to person.
That’s why the Government has today asked the President of the Law Reform Commission, Judge John Quirke, to undertake a three month review and to make recommendations as to the criteria that should be applied in assessing the help that the government can provide in the areas of payments and other supports, including medical cards, psychological and counselling services and other welfare needs.
The terms of reference for Judge Quirke will be published later today and I will also arrange for the representatives of the women to be fully briefed on this process. When Judge Quirke has reported, the government will establish a Fund to assist the women, based on his recommendations.
I am confident that this process will enable us to provide speedy, fair and meaningful help to the women in a compassionate and non adversial way. I am determined that the fund will be primarily used to help the women – as is their stated and strong desire – not for legal or administrative costs.
The McAleese Report also refers to women who recounted similar experiences in other residential laundries, such as the laundry offering services to the public operated in the Training Centre at Stanhope Street, Dublin.
The government has decided that these women should be included in both the apology I have extended today, and in the Fund.
I am also conscious that many of the women I met last week want to see a permanent memorial established to remind us all of this dark part of our history.
I agree that this should be done and intend to engage directly with the representative groups and of as many of the women as possible to agree on the creation of an appropriate memorial to be financed by the Government separately from the funds that are being set aside for the direct assistance for the women.
Let me conclude by again speaking directly to the women whose experiences in Magdalene Laundries have negatively affected their subsequent lives.
As a society, for many years we failed you.
We forgot you or, if we thought of you at all, we did so in untrue and offensive stereotypes.
This is a national shame, for which I again say, I am deeply sorry and offer my full and heartfelt apologies.
At the conclusion of my discussions with one group of the Magdalene Women one of those present sang ‘Whispering Hope’. A line from that song stays in my mind – “when the dark midnight is over, watch for the breaking of day”.
Let me hope that this day and this debate – excuse me – heralds a new dawn for all those who feared that the dark midnight might never end.
Paul Keating: 'Australians feel uncannily at home with the Irish', Address to Irish Taoiseach - 1992
20 September 1993, Dublin, Ireland
A Cheann Comhairle, let me say it is a pleasure to be in the great city of Dublin; a rare feeling, as ever, to be in Ireland whence came my own people, so many of my fellow-Australians and so much of my country; and an honour to address the Dáil.
I wanted to come to Ireland as Prime Minister of Australia for the good reason of history. While I am here, I will be talking to the Taoiseach, other Ministers and business people about trade, particularly in relation to the GATT Round. I will be putting a particular point of view.
Both our countries are now players in the international economy and inevitably we have overlapping economic interests. I will be talking about investment in Australia, about the European Community and APEC — the forum for economic co-operation in the Asia-Pacific region which you have just mentioned. Necessarily, I want to talk about related social issues, particularly unemployment which is a problem afflicting both our countries and virtually all the developed countries of the world. I want to hear Irish views on these matters and I would like the opportunity also to put my own.
I am also here for the less tangible but utterly inescapable and irresistible attraction of history. I have a feeling the people in this Chamber may inwardly groan every time a politician of Irish ancestry comes here and signals that he or she is going to give them a history lecture. It would not surprise me if you are thinking — here we go again, he is going to tell us about our Irish past or our literary tradition; he is bound to quote Yeats at us; tell us about 1798 again or give us his views on our character. I would dearly like to spare you this and I will.
As a post-colonial country ourselves, some of us remember the presumptions of visitors. Yet, the fact remains that Ireland is possibly unique in the world in the hold if has on the consciousness of other countries. I know when my predecessor, Bob Hawke, addressed this Parliament several years ago he spoke about the feeling he had when he arrived at Shannon airport — he said he felt as if he had come home. Bob Hawke is nowhere near as Irish as I am; if Bob felt at home, it must be I never left.
When President Mary Robinson last year made what has become a quite famous tour of Australia, I found myself unconsciously repeating this theme at a luncheon in her honour in Canberra. Australians feel uncannily at home with the Irish. They feel a great affinity which apparently transcends ancestral connections and this seems to me to speak of the immense power and importance of history, memory, language and culture.
I am not talking about some quaint showcase of the past, of museums, of curious glimpses of faded agrarian life or even Georgian architecture, although I could look at Georgian architecture all day, myself. The attraction of Ireland is an elemental thing; it fulfils a need in us. It is almost as if one can say that if Ireland did not exist countries like Australia would have to invent it, and perhaps we should.
Politicians or Governments of all complexions, bureaucrats and business people, all those of us in a position to influence policy, should know what it means to ignore history, heritage, language and culture. Yet, there is always a tendency in political thought towards orthodoxy rather than those broad and less readily defined concerns.
On the way here via the United States and Britain I was reading Seán Ó Faoláin's book The Irish. At one point, writing about Wolfe Tone, he says:
One feels that his laughter and his humanity would have blown all these away, [meaning orthodoxy, sectarianism, puritanism and cant] would have defined political liberty not merely in terms of comfort but of gaiety and tolerance and a great pity and a free mind and a free heart and a full life.
Ó Faoláin, of course, was talking about Ireland, which I do not mean to do; I mean to talk about my own country.
Many of the Irish who played leading parts in Tone's rebellion of 1798 were transported to Australia, among them prominent leaders of the rebellion like Michael Dwyer, Joseph Holt, James Meehan and Michael Hayes.
I might add inter alia that a concentration of 1798 veterans took up land to the south-west of Sydney in such numbers as to earn the place the name of Irishtown. It is now called Bankstown and it is where I was born, grew up and spent most of my life. It is my hometown and the heart of my political constituency, and the most obvious ethnic groups these days are Lebanese and Vietnamese.
The curious thing about the 1798 convicts is that in the colony of New South Wales the expectation that these rebels would rebel was never really met. The profound opportunities for economic independence which Australia provided for men and women of ordinary means, combined with the liberal humanity of individuals like Governor Macquarie, put paid not just to their rebelliousness, but to the notion that the Irish were born rebels, that they were irredeemably hostile to society, or at least it should have put paid to the notion. As the Australian historian, Patrick O'Farrell, has said, the myth of rebellion continued but the reality was generally rather different.
In 1816 Michael Hayes wrote: "There is room here for some millions if they were allowed to emigrate. What a happiness it would be to the unfortunate Irish tenantry were they here to participate in these blessings". It has been a theme in the correspondence of migrants ever since.
One hundred years later a huge sign was erected in London's Aldwych near the site of Australia House. It said:
Go to Australia. You will have a hearty welcome, a generous return for your energy and enterprise and a climate that is the healthiest in the world.
Australia has always held out this great promise, that it could take the poor and the oppressed and give them liberty, economic independence and the material comforts denied them in their own country and, beyond that, by these "blessings" winnow from their hearts and minds all the ancient bitterness and unreason, as if Australia could do what a Wolfe Tone might have done. If there has been a continuous theme to Australian history, one mission, it is perhaps this one. If there is one standard we have set ourselves, it has been how well we have lived up to this promise.
The theme begins with the British and Irish convicts and it follows the trail of migration through to the present day. It includes not just the Irish but the Italians, the Greeks, the Lebanese, the Jews, the Latvians, the Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Cambodians — people from more than 150 countries of the world.
It has been a difficult ambition to live up to. Consider the appellations given to the country over the years. It has been known as the "better country"; the "land of the better chance"; the "working man's paradise"; the "social laboratory of the world"; "Australia Unlimited" and, although it was originally meant ironically, "the lucky country".
Occupying a land so vast, with such bountiful resources, such a splendid climate, such free institutions, being heirs to a land seemingly so blessed, may be why Australians are sometimes rather severely self-critical. In fact, depending on which columnists one reads — and there seems to be no consensus even among the several of Irish extraction — one would think sometimes we live in a diabolically impoverished and inadequate place.
It is a constant theme of political and cultural argument in Australia that we have failed to deliver on our unlimited potential; indeed, that our great good fortune in possessing a vast continent has made us complacent. There is a view, which I do not share, that those things we have achieved might have been more the product of good luck than good management.
With rare exceptions, we have delivered liberty. If material prosperity has occasionally been hard to come by, and there have been enough instances of conflict to indicate that the resentments were not entirely swept away, Australia has always been and remains by any standards both a prosperous country and a tolerant one. I do not know any way to measure the extent to which an immigrant culture has been responsible for this; how much it has both obliged us to practise tolerance and provide opportunity, or to what extent we can say that a migrant culture, of its nature, will demand these things and value them.
A familiar question for Australians is how much we are a product of our circumstances, and how much we are what we have made ourselves to be. In truth, by the act of migration the country was made: by that voluntary act and by the emigrants' ambitions it was built.
As a politician, I know little of a lasting nature happens by virtue of some latent moral or political force. As a general rule we do not get blown where we want to go — we have to take ourselves there. In politics, as in much else, it requires imagination and a will to exercise political power. That depends on having not just the Irish rebel's feeling about injustice but the 19th century Irish emigrant's ability to imagine a better life, and to find it.
Indeed, I would like to think I had more of the qualities of the emigrant. Better a politician who not only confronts an unsatisfactory reality, but has the wherewithal, the will and the skill, to change it. Better one willing to go to sea — but, of course, not in a boat without oars.
In Australia in the 1980s we embarked on a voyage of economic reform. We deregulated the economy and opened it up to the world. In doing this we did what the emigrant does — we confronted necessity. Had we not done so, the modern world and the opportunities it offers would have passed us by. It took political will, persuasion and persistence and the ability to resist the temptation to turn back.
Sometimes it feels as if one has gone to sea in a boat without oars. Sometimes one thinks it would have been easier to stay put in the first place. Those convict vessels on which the rebels of 1798 made their voyage sometimes took nearly 12 months to get to Australia. It must have felt like an eternity.
The process of economic reform can feel the same way — one day flying along with the sails threatening to rip apart, the next day becalmed. Of course, there are the days when the ship is immaculately on course and travelling at a manageable rate and one is thinking not of home, not even of the journey, but of the destination.
The destination was and remains an internationally competitive economy which means, among other things, an economy less dependent upon our mineral and agricultural commodities and more capable of manufacturing products for global markets, particularly the markets of the Asia-Pacific region — the fastest growing markets in the world.
We have gone a long way towards reaching this goal. Our economy has been completely transformed. Exports have doubled, service and manufacturing exports have more than trebled and are now equal to rural exports for the first time in our history. Our economy is much more diverse and the fastest growing sector by far is elaborately transformed manufactures. A decade ago less than half of our exports went to our own region. Today two thirds go to east Asia. Three quarters of all Australian exports go to the Asia-Pacific region, an area of two billion people producing half the world's output and engaged in half the world's trade.
These figures basically describe Australia's future. They mark the stages on the journey towards an economy of which it will never be possible to say: "They got it by chance; it fell into their lap". It will only be possible to say that, like the emigrant, we recognised necessity when we saw it and we did what had to be done.
Of course, we were not the only country in the world to reform our economy in the 1980s. Much that we did was done elsewhere as countries realised that in the modern era if they did not change they would fall behind. There is no doubt we have been served well by the economic reforms made and that we are all the better for having made social reforms also.
A large element of our improved international competitiveness was achieved by means of an accord between the Government and the trade unions. The accord dramatically reduced industrial disputation, held wages to competitive levels, made a major contribution to reducing inflation to a rate among the lowest in the OECD and sponsored a creative and co-operative culture in the workplace which is radically increasing levels of productivity.
Implementing the concept of the social wage in the 1980s meant that in the 1990s we have a first-class health system; a social net as extensive and sophisticated as any in the world; legislation affecting the rights and wellbeing of women as advanced as any in the world; and through positive Government programmes assisting ethnic groups and encouraging cultural diversity, a multi-cultural society of infinitely more richness and strength, including economic strength. In other words, as the Australian Government has stepped out of the marketplace in many regards, it has stepped into its social responsibilities.
It is essentially for reasons of social unity and social justice that we have made the biggest effort in our history at last to deliver the basis of social justice for indigenous Australians, of extended opportunity which New World countries like ours are intended to provide.
The great casualty of immigration was Aboriginal Australia. The destruction of this extraordinary ancient culture, and the brutality and injustice inflicted on the first Australians can never really be set to right, any more than the injustice and dispossession which occurred in this country can be fully set to right.
However, we can heal wounds and spare new generations from the hurt and bitterness of the past. We can include Aboriginal Australia in the social equation as never before: our culture will be much stronger and the self-esteem of all Australians much greater.
It seems to me a perfect example of the fact that necessity does not, of itself, lead to change. There has been a moral and social necessity to right these wrongs inflicted on Aboriginal Australia for generations. What has led to change is will; the will and imagination necessary to conceive of something better.
This last decade of Australia's national life has been a decade of quite remarkable change and the next decade shows every sign of keeping up the pace. If we have learned a lesson in the course of the journey, it is that the pace will be best maintained and the change will be more effective if the people are included. No political principle was so thoroughly confirmed for me in recent years as this one: that one succeeds best by trusting the people's best feelings. I believe that is the essential weapon of every political reformer.
Change will never be made by heeding the negatives, the conservatism, myopia, prejudice or pedantry which exists in any society. Those prone to nervousness could not dictate a reform agenda. Change will be made by leaping over them — by talking of something better. Of all the lessons of the emigrant, for the politician this is the most fundamental and I believe it is the lesson contained in those words I quoted about Wolfe Tone — that political reform means to enlarge life. It means offering an alternative to cant and narrow orthodoxy and all the debilitating constraints in which history is forever wrapping us and to which conservative self-interest always appeals. Political reform means offering to the people what emigration offered to the Irish in the 19th century, to Europeans after World War II, to Cambodians and Vietnamese in recent times — quite simply, the prospect of a better life in a better country.
This takes me back, in turn, to those lessons we learn from Ireland: that if we are drawn to Ireland by the history, the language and culture — not to say the beauty of the place — then Governments ignore these things at their peril. For that reason there is a link between culture and reform, between the arts and reform, between the life of the mind and reform. It is why, like the extension of social policy, the extension of policies encouraging cultural development is essential in times of dramatic economic change. They feed the national imagination, encourage people to contemplate alternatives and, of course, they soothe the savage beast in us.
You see what lessons can be drawn from Ireland: real, hard, political lessons. It is not that we were thinking of Ireland when we drew them. The parallels only begin to present themselves as we approach the old shores. Nor were we thinking of Ireland when we thought of the republic. Rather we were thinking that we are a country separated from these islands by 12,000 miles and 200 years of experience; that we are a people comprised of more than 150 nationalities and for some time now we have been encouraging all of them to retain their cultural identity; that our people live extraordinarily varied lives on an extraordinarily varied continent and that the time had come, in this last decade of our first century as a nation, to put a border round this tapestry of our national life, time we enshrined the immigrant's traditions of courage and faith together with those traditions of democracy, tolerance, fair play and greater opportunity which are the best traditions of Australia.
It seemed to us that a republic might acknowledge and enshrine the values of a people who have been willing to imagine something better, willing to confront the need to change, to make their way on a new frontier, and who have learned that these things are best done together.
To those who want to hold back, who fear change, who say it is not the right time to do this, we might say — what if our forebears had said that? What if they had lacked the imagination and the will? What if they had stayed put? Well, I would not be an Australian nor would most of the 17 million others, and I would not have had the extraordinary opportunities my country has given me — among them the immeasurable privilege of coming to the land of my ancestors as Prime Minister of Australia and addressing this national Parliament.
Thank you.
Enda Kenny: 'There are millions out there who want to play their part for America', St Patrick's Day speech - 2017
16 March 2017, White House, Washington DC, USA
TAOISEACH KENNY: Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, members of
Congress, ambassadors, friends of Ireland, distinguished guests.
(Speaks in Irish.)
I didn’t say anything disparaging about you there. (Laughter.) What I said was, it’s a pleasure for me to be here, along with my wife, Fionnuala, to be amongst this august gathering. And on behalf of the government of Ireland and the people of Ireland, I wish you all a very happy St. Patrick’s festival for you all.
They say the Irish have the capacity to change everything. I just saw the President of the United States read from his script, entirely. (Laughter and applause.) I was going to say “a change is coming.” (Laughter.)
Paul, it’s a pleasure. And thank you for your visit to Ireland when you called to see me in government buildings with your family and on your visit down to Kilkenny. When I had the privilege of speaking to the President on the telephone very shortly after his election, I said to him if it would be possible to continue this tradition, which began so many years ago, and he said, without hesitation, of course — followed by the Vice President and U.S. Speaker.
This is a unique occasion for Ireland and for its people. To have the facility of being honored by the Speaker of the House, the access to the President of the United States, the Vice President, and most of the team is something that we really do cherish. It goes back a very long way from when Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan and all of the others put this together in the first place. So it’s a really important day for us, and we’re very grateful to stand between these two flags, united in history and so much.
I haven’t had the opportunity to present you with a particular piece of sculpture which is entitled “Arrival,” by John Behan. It’s a miniature — but it’s quite large — of what stands at the United Nations in New York of the tale and the story and the history of Irish immigrants after the famine years.
So let me congratulate you, President Trump, on your election. You beat them all. (Laughter and applause.) Whatever they say, elections are tough-going. I know, I’ve been through 20 of them myself. (Laughter.) But the President and the Vice President and this administration now holds within its hands the responsibility of dealing with so many global international issues in a world that is changing so rapidly and that is so fragile in so many respects. And I know that you will do your utmost to work in the interests of our common humanity, and you will have the prayers and the support of the Irish people. And let me say to you, and the European Union — and the work that you have to do in the times — in the challenging times ahead.
We discussed the kind of driver that the President uses — Titleist, 9-degree loft, Doonbeg, wind off the Atlantic. You have to roll the wrist at the top to get that shot straight. And during the course of this presidency, President Trump will visit Ireland, and he said he would put the sticks in the hold of Air Force One.
Anyway, let me just say a few words here about our country. We’ve come through a torrid time a number of years ago. When I took over the government back in 2011, we were blocked out of all the markets, the Troika were in town, our sovereignty was gone, our hope was gone; hemorrhage of immigration, and a falloff in all business right across every sector.
Now, because of the sacrifices of the people and tough choices made, we’re in a different spot. Unemployment, which was 15.2, is now down to 6.6 percent and falling. Employment is the highest in 10 years. A growth rate of 5.2 percent last year. Fourth year running. Ireland is the fastest-growing country in Europe. Deficit eliminated next year. Two million-plus working now. I was accused in Cork three weeks ago of blocking up the Irish roads with people going to work. (Laughter and applause.) That’s the challenge of success, I suppose.
It’s fair to say, as you know, Mr. President, we’ve got 700 Irish firms, and 65 percent of the 700 firms working in America have a full-time presence in this market. And they now employ 100,000 people across 50 states. And that’s because of our participation in the European Union and the confidence that our people have to expand now beyond their own shores. And this two-way conduit is to the mutual benefit of our people and of the United States. And let me say that Ireland and the European Union will never be anything but a friend to your country, to these United States here. (Applause.)
And I want you to understand that all administrations, over the last 40 years and beyond, have worked in the interests of the fragility of our country. We’ve had our troubles. We’ve had real difficulties. And George Mitchell spoke last night at the Ireland Funds about the contribution that both Europe, and particularly the United States, made towards putting that fragile peace together. We’re glad to see Ian Paisley here and, indeed, Gerry Adams, who have had their difficulties. We have put it all together and have maintained a fragile peace. And that’s why it’s important that we recognize the contribution made by the United States to that peace, where we have no border and where people can live their lives as one would expect to contribute to their country and their economies. And all presidents and all administrations over the years have assisted us in that regard. (Applause.)
So we want to protect this peace process, and I know that you’re going to work with us in that context also. We have agreed with the British government that there would be no return to the border, as it used to apply years ago, with customs, posts on major roads, and every other road blown up or impassable because of sectarian violence that that brought with it. We have banished that. We want to see it remain banished. And the political agreement is no return to that kind of border of the past, and the challenge is to implement that in a way that works in the interests of the people North and South.
And let me say to you that as a member of the European Council, what we want to do is to work with America. I believe genuinely, with Europe having created 4.5 million jobs in the last three years, that we can work with the United States to create more employment here, create opportunities for so many millions of Americans. And it may well be that in a revised trade agenda, that we can do that to the mutual benefit of 500 million people in the European Union and your population here across the United States. We will work with this administration, Paul and Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, in the interests of everybody.
Thank you, Peter King, and thank you, Richard Neal — I know you’re here somewhere — for the work you’ve done over the years with the (inaudible). (Applause.) It may well be that it might be appropriate for the government and the administration to have a desk here in Washington which will associate itself with Northern Ireland, so that in the event of contact having to be made, that there’s a voice to answer that.
You had in the past envoys appointed to Northern Ireland on practically a full-time basis. I think we can work now as a priority to get this executive up and running in the next short period. But to have continued connection here with the administration would be very important, and I’m sure Peter and Rich will work at that.
I just want to say, I had a very good meeting this morning with the Vice President and with General John Kelly. Sitting at the table, we were hosted by the Vice President in the traditional breakfast in the Naval Observatory. Didn’t get much chance to eat the breakfast, I have to say; it’s one of the difficulties in politics — it’s in front of you but you can’t get near it. (Laughter.) We did discuss the question of immigration, which is so important to the fabric of our people. And I know that in this country, this is an issue that the administration and the President are reflecting upon. And that’s something that, again, we will work with you diligently in this regard in the two sectors that we used to have a facility for E3 visas for young people who want to come to America and to work here. We discussed that very constructively this morning.
And secondly, as a part of the overall immigration reform that the Irish have contributed so much, it would be part of that. And we look forward to the works that will take place at the time ahead.
You might say that when Mike Pence’s grandfather landed here in Ellis Island in 1923, that the contribution had been made by so many Irish for so many years. It was in 1771 that the friendly Sons of St. Patrick were put together in Philadelphia, and one of their first honorary members was a young man called George Washington. And seven years later, he handed the first commission to a naval officer called John Barry, who was co-founder of the American Navy. And he was joined later by John Holland, who designed the first submarine. And he was followed by Louis Brennan, from my hometown, who had a major impact on the navigation systems for torpedoes.
And so many others, from Henry Ford, through music and culture, and so many other areas, that 22 members of the American Presidents who sat in the White House had either Scots or Irish blood in them. And you follow in that line, sir.
And I’d just like to say in finality, this is what I said to your predecessor on a number of occasions: We would like this to be sorted. It would remove a burden of so many people that they can stand out in the light and say, now I am free to contribute to America as I know I can. And that’s what people want. (Applause.)
I know you’ll reflect on this, but I’m always struck by the American National Anthem when it’s sung before the great occasions. And I suppose being an emotional Irishman, the hairs tingle at the back of your neck when you hear your own national anthem. But for us, when Old Glory waves, and you put your hand on your heart and you say, “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” ours is still as brave as ever, but maybe not as free. Because of the 4,000 Congressional Medals of Honor given out to the defense forces, over 2,000 go to the Irish Americans. So they fought in the Revolutionary War. They beat the daylights out of each other in Fredericksburg and Gettysburg and Yorktown, and other places, in Atlanta. They fought every war for America and died for America — and will continue to do so. All they want is the opportunity to be free.
And this administration, working with Democrats and Republicans, I hope, can sort this out once and for all. And for future years, you determine what it is that you want to do. As George Mitchell said last evening, you can’t return to open immigration, but for the people who are here — who should be here, might be here — that’s an issue that I’m sure your administration will reflect on. And we in Ireland will give you every assistance in that regard.
There are millions out there who want to play their part for America — if you like, who want to make America great. (Laughter.) Heard it before? Heard that before? (Applause.)
So I see Vicki here in front of me. We didn’t get as far as the Kennedy Center the other evening. I was talking to young people the other day, they were on about all the different things that are happening in the world, and they reminded me of one of JFK’s statements: “This is our planet. Together, we shall save or we shall perish in its flames.”
We have work to do. Let’s eat. Thank you.
Charles Haughey: 'We are living away beyond our means', televised address -
9 January 1980,
I wish to talk to you this evening about the state of the nation’s affairs and the picture I have to paint is not, unfortunately, a very cheerful one.
The figures which are now just becoming available to us show one thing very clearly. As a community we are living away beyond our means. I do not mean that everyone in the community is living too well. Clearly many are not and have barely enough to get by. But taking us all together, we have been living at a rate which is simply not justified by the amount of goods and services we are producing.
To make up the difference, we have been borrowing enormous amounts of money, borrowing at a rat which just cannot continue. As few simple figures will make this very clear.
At home, the government’s current income from taxes and all other sources in 1979 fell short of what was needed to pay the running costs of the state by about £520m million. To meet this and our capital programme, we had to borrow in 1979 over £1000 million. That amount equals to one-seventh of our entire national output.
The situation in regard to our trading with the outside world in 1979 was bad also. Our income from abroad fell short of what we had to pay out by about £760 million which led to a fall in our reserves.
To fully understand our situation, we must look not just on the home scene but also on the troubled and unstable world around us. There are wars and rumours or wars. There is political instability in some of the most important areas of the world. A very serious threat exists to the world’s future supply of energy. We can no longer be sure that we will be able to go on paying the prices now being demanded for all the oil and other fuels we require to keep our factories going and to keep our homes and institutions supplied with light, heat and power they need. We will, of course push exploration for our own oil ahead as rapidly as possible but in the short term the burden of oil prices will continue to be a crushing one.
All this indicates that we must, first of all, as a matter of urgency, set about putting our domestic affairs in order and secondly, improving our trade with the rest of the world on so far as we can do so.
We will have to continue to cut down on government spending. The government is taking far too much by way of taxes from individual members of the community. But even this amount is not enough to meet our commitments. We will just have to reorganise government spending so that we can only undertake the things which we can afford.
In trying to bring government expenditure within manageable proportions, we will, of course, be paying particular attention to the needs of the poorer and weaker sections of the community and make sure they are looked after. Other essential community expenditure will have to be undertaken also. But there are many things which will just have to be curtailed or postponed, until such time as we can get the financial situation right.
There is one things above all else which we can do to help get the situation right and which is entirely within our control. I refer to industrial relations. Any further serious interruption in production, or in the provision of essential services, in 1980 would be a major disaster. I believe that everyone listening to me tonight shares my anxiety about our situation in that respect.
Strikes, go-slows, work-to-rule, stoppages in key industries and essentials services, were too often a feature of life in 1979. They caused suffering and hardship; at time it looked as if we were becoming one of those countries where basic services could not be relied upon to operate as part of normal life.
Immediately following my election as Taoiseach, I received countless messages from all over the country from people in every walk of life, appealing to me to do something about this situation.
Let us clearly understand, however that this is not a one-sided affair. Managements that do not give first-class attention to their firm’s industrial relations, who ignore situations and let them drift into confrontation, are just as blameworthy as the handful of wild men who slap an unofficial picket and stop thousands of workers from earning their living.
Apportioning blame, however, is not going to get us anywhere. What we need is a new way forward and that is my primary purpose, as head of government, in talking to you tonight.