I’m delighted to be here today, and to welcome all of you to this Pendulum Summit 2015. Our most famous Dubliner, James Joyce said that ‘when he died, Dublin would be written in his heart’.
I hope that your experiences with us over the next few days will see our beautiful capital city leave its indelible imprint on your hearts immediately and long years before that ultimate journey, one that despite our differences, we all must make. You have come here to this conference to ‘hear the world’s best share their ideas on maximising potential and getting the balance right’.
I can assure you that the idea of being included in that ‘best’ fills me with trepidation. But maximising potential, potential for Ireland, is something I have sought for decades, and now as Taoiseach, I have made sure to put to work for us in building the better and the richer life we want for our country, in the vigil year of the centenary of the 1916 Rising, for all our people.
As you know, Ireland has come through a difficult time economically. Today, at last, we are in recovery. When we came to Office in 2011, our country was three months from running out of money. No salaries for our public servants, no services for our people. The prospect of armed guards at our banks, and on our streets. Anathema to us as a people, renowned for our passion for democracy, even some would say miraculously, in the immediate aftermath of our Civil War. Our people were distressed. The loss was not alone financial. It was emotional, psychological, and as I said on my first day as Taoiseach, spiritual. Because Ireland was, and remains, a deeply spiritual nation, as your speaker Deepak Chopra knows so well.
Despite all the naysayers, the voices shrill or smooth or at times, full of glee, warning ‘no you’re kidding yourselves, no, it could never be done’, forecasting ‘a second bailout’
We put our heads down, worked day and night. We always believed, and we never gave up. And today Ireland is in recovery. On Wednesday, we borrowed at the cheapest interest rate ever on a 7 year bond issued by the NTMA at 0.86%. Today we have over 80,000 new jobs. We have the youngest workforce in the EU. We have one of the most flexible and adaptable workforces in the world. We’re in the global top 20 for the quality of our scientific research. It’s a source of some pride to us that 9 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world now call Ireland ‘home’.
And according to the received wisdom, of its being ‘not enough to do well…. but to do good’. I’m proud to say that despite all our difficulties, we’re still the most generous people in Europe in how we give to charity, not just money, but of ourselves. At feeding stations and clinics, even in the forgotten parts of the world, there will be an Irish voice giving hope and confidence, an Irish hand, reaching out to bring comfort, reassurance of our shared humanity. Yes, I am here for you’ I will not leave you aloneIreland is actually the one country in respect of which one can say that since the U.N. was founded that every day since we have had personnel somewhere on the planet involved in peacekeeping on humanitarian causes.
Central to Ireland’s recovery, economically and emotionally, are our young people and the kind of future they will live in. Yes, they will need and want good jobs, decent salaries, more money in their pockets, the financial standards and benefits of a thriving economy. But they need equally to feel part of a just, compassionate and thriving society, where as citizens they feel a sense of belonging because they are valued and respected.
As Taoiseach, I speak constantly about the loneliness haunting so many lives. About the pain, about the feelings of fear and self-loathing that ransack our sanity, removing us from any sense of peace or hope or comfort. For our young, this is especially challenging. I speak all the time about how, for our young people, their peers are no longer at school or the sports club, but everywhere across the globe. Where everything is promoted as possible. I hear a lot from parents about giving children ‘confidence’. Yes. To maximise their potential they need it. But to achieve the proper balance, an emotional and psychological equilibrium, what they need even more in their lives is the capacity to deal with difficulty and failure. Because for all of us, despite a culture idolatrous of ease and success, difficulty and failure are inevitable companions. And when bad moments arrive, too often they succumb, because in this more, than in any other generation, I believe we are not preparing our young people to deal with difficulty and to fail. In our constant affirmation, you’re the brightest, you’re the smartest, you’re the best, we’ve denied them their immunity.
We’ve removed from them the opportunities to practise and to perfect their resilience. And as I point out regularly, all of this is happening in a world of Likes, Dislikes, of Followers lost and gained, of thumbs down, thumbs up.
Crucially for us in Ireland, in our economic recovery we’re asking, and rightly, how will we define our value, and our values? This is the national conversation we must have, and the debate we must engage in, now that we are securing this recovery, a recovery that must be for ALL our people, a hundred years from 1916. All of you here will be aware of the shift, the acute political shift we are seeing across Ireland and across Europe. As I told the national parliament recently, I believe it has at its heart something far bigger and deeper than ‘politics’ itself. I believe in the years ahead, issues of the ‘self’, the quest for identity, dignity and belonging will come very much to the fore as the political ground shifts beneath us, and we write the new blueprint for a public life, a kinder and more equal society. And in all of that in maximising our potential, in achieving the balance, it is perfectly clear that it is our shared humanity, our shared values, our shared sense of what constitutes ‘a good life’, that will define the trust between peoples and their politicians, And above all between peoples and their governments.
Here in Ireland we have an ancient quality called Duthracht. - it is the care, the active and responsible ‘love’and respect with which we attend those around us. And today I extend it to the souls of the murdered, to all the families and friends of Charlie Hebdo, to President Hollande and his government and to the people of France, of every faith and none. I believe here and across our world, in the changes and challenges we face, in how we maximise our potential and achieve the balance, that sense of Duthracht will be critical.
Over the coming days you will address such matters in eminent company. I wish you well as you do. I hope that in your exploring, you will leave our shores wiser and happier.
In the words of TS Eliot…We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
ENDS