11,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Liberties Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
Michael D. Higgins' vision as part of his Presidential election campaign and now following through to his tenure as President of Ireland, is 'of [an] inclusive citizenship in a creative society, as we build a real Republic that makes us proud to be Irish in the world'. Renewing the Republicis an expansion of that vision as Michael D. lays out, through a series of essays and speeches, the ideals and philosophies by which this is possible. This collection of essays include Michael D.'s reasons for running for the Irish presidency; his academic essays on a variety of subjects, including the peasantry in Ireland and public representation; his thoughts on recent social and political changes and the current economic crisis. His speech at the Tom Johnson Summer School, highlighting his commitment to the arts in Ireland, and his last speech to the Dáil on 25th January 2011 also feature. This rich and varied compilation explores six themes: citizenship and the republic; culture, identity and reputation; human rights; language; globalisation, emigration and exile; and the public space.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Ähnliche
RENEWING THE REPUBLIC
MICHAEL D. HIGGINS
Contents
1.
Recovering the Promise of a Real Republic
‘That which has failed must not be repaired.’
I wish to thank those who have sat in the Chair at different stages, for their courtesy and kindness to me over a very long period. I have been here in this Chamber for twenty-five years, with nine years in the Seanad, and since I first stood for election forty-two years ago. I am indebted not just for the courtesy of Members of this House, the staff and the ushers and others, but also, on occasion, for their kindness as well. Gabhaim buíochas ó chroí leo agus chomh maith le mo chomhleacaithe thar na blianta.
This evening I want to take advantage of the wide range of speeches that have preceded mine, including those on Dáil reform. Nevertheless, I wish to concentrate on what I believe makes up some of the contextual background to what we are discussing today. I wish the next government well. It is a government I hope to look at from a distance. I have already said I am very grateful for the kindness and courtesy of my colleagues in this House over the years, and I hope not to be saying a goodbye to them. If I succeed in getting the Labour Party nomination for the presidency, I look forward to meeting them all in their constituencies in a less formal setting.
When I first stood for election in 1969, I was very conscious of something that is important to me. I was leaving an academic world in which I had spent a great deal of time, and on which I had expended a great deal of anxiety in order to secure entry. People from backgrounds such as mine did not go to university, did not qualify in other universities, and certainly did not teach in universities. I left that world to participate in public life, which was part of the tradition of my family. I wish people from all walks of life took part in politics and in public life. It is very important to act in the public space with whatever, as Connolly would put it, are the gifts of hand or brain one has, and to deliver it for one’s fellow citizens. I was conscious in 1969, however, of the great failure of a country that then called itself a republic. I believe no real republic has been created in Ireland. The failure has been of three kinds. There has been a failure in making political power republican; a failure in making republican any kind of administrative power; and a failure with regard to communicative power. Without being technical about each of these, I think that those who wanted Ireland to be independent would have envisaged a country in which there would be a far greater distribution of power, that it would not be confined solely to the exercise of parliamentary democracy.
Parliamentary democracy is incredibly important. For many years, people in Ireland struggled to have their own parliament and struggled to participate in it. But there is more to political power than voting once every four or five years; there is the exercise of power in every dimension of life. If a real republic had been founded, we should have been spending decades extending and deepening political power. To the credit of the Labour Party, that has been its intention and aspiration, however achieved, since it was founded in 1912. With regard to administrative power, it is quite appalling that there was no real change from the time the Treasury dominated in the olden days in the handover to the Department of Finance.
As a political scientist, I find it quite extraordinary that so much attention has focused on changing the electoral system and so little on the structure of Cabinet power. There is no constitutional basis for the hegemony of the Department of Finance; it was a practice that flowed seamlessly from the British Treasury and was adopted without question. If one wanted to effect radical change, one would break the connection between the monopoly enjoyed by the government of the day and Parliament. One would allow, for example, the establishment of a committee system with the right to initiate and change legislation. If one wanted to go further, as in the Scandinavian model, it would be to allow committees to have limited budgetary powers, thus ensuring that people who came into politics would have a career in politics separate from being on the front bench, if in Opposition, or being in Cabinet, if in government. These are real reforms, but they are empty and missing from the discourse. I have the impression that even though the Labour Party has produced 140 proposals which I strongly support, including in particular its proposals on citizenship, I find, generally, that there is an element of fright in what those elected are suggesting, as if they are offering themselves for reform, as if that was the major problem. That is not the problem.
I will give my opinion on where I think this is going, having spent my lifetime not just in elected politics but also in academic politics and the social sciences – another area of great failure. I say this as a founding member of the Irish Sociological Association and the Irish Political Science Association. One need only watch television and listen to radio to know what is happening internationally. A significant price is already being paid for the broken connection between the aspirations of the people of this planet and those who take decisions on their behalf. The distinguished political scientist Jürgen Habermas has suggested that people can be invited to be bound by rules and by decisions in which they have had a chance to consciously participate. In one part of the world after another, we have the assumption that rational parliaments will be able to solve global problems such as the food crisis, the environmental crisis, the energy crisis, or whatever.
At the same time, very serious people are suggesting that it is parliament that is irrational, and that markets are rational, when in fact all the evidence shows that it is the flow of international market capital which is completely unaccountable and is irrational. There is no evidence since the Crash in the 1920s in the United States, which can show one jot of evidence, as both Professor Samuels Senior and Junior have stated, that the markets are rational. There is strong evidence for the speculative consequences of markets.
On the other hand, people have put all their trust in parliaments, and all over the world parliament is losing. In the European Union, for instance, we are in the gravest danger of sinking back to a common market rather than a Europe beyond wars, which might have been a Europe of all the citizens. The ‘citizen deficit’ in Europe is its most serious failure. That is why those who want to defend their banks, be they French presidents or German chancellors, are defending their francs rather than the possibilities of Europe. They have put us in so much danger as regards the European project.
There was a great opportunity missed to build a real inclusive republic in Ireland, which would have reformed the relationship of Cabinet to the Dáil structures, that would have had a democratic, local government, that would have allowed opportunities for participation. There has been a political failure to establish a republic. There has also been an administrative failure, whereby administrative structures are hierarchical and patriarchal. I listen to those speaking about the clash between being a legislator and being a representative, and the consequences of clientelism, about which I wrote in the 1970s. This is because of an authoritarian administrative system that never saw the citizen in the French republican sense of being an equal. It was because the relationship of the citizen with the State system was devalued.
There is a communicative power where there is no connection between the vulnerability, the struggle and the agony of ordinary people at this time, and the description of what is news, of what is happening in the world which they inhabit. They do not have equal access to the story; rather, it is for those who work in the sector. I was Minister with responsibility for broadcast communications. This is not an Irish phenomenon. Across Europe and the Western World, people will say that they must be cynical about presenting what the viewing or listening public will accept as the news of the day. This kind of artificial connection between what is moral and what is ethical is incredibly dangerous.
It is widening an excluded underclass in Ireland. It is creating people who will move quickly to conflict because there are no mediating institutions in Europe. In one country after another across Africa and Asia, as people overthrow dictatorships, they place their trust first in representative institutions and then, if they are let down, they are into a straight conflict with what are regarded as the forces of law and order. The result is war, and the waste of human and other resources in the terrible tasks of war.
I say this not to depress anybody but simply to state that since I was a child in County Clare I have had a belief in the power of education and in the power of ideas. However, I believe that an enormously high price has been paid for a kind of anti-intellectualism and authoritarianism in Irish culture. Therefore, I believe that we need to draw one conclusion. We need not suggest that that which has failed us should, or can be, repaired. This is why the Labour Party is incredibly important in leading a government. We need to go back and recover the promise of a real republic that would be built on citizenship and that would reject as outrageous in a republic the kind of radical individualism epitomised in that ugly statement of Michael McDowell’s that inequality is needed for the stability of society. It ranks with Margaret Thatcher’s view that there is no such thing as society. It stands there as such a notion. People should have seen immediately how incongruous it was to speak like this with a hubris drawn from the language of radical individualism.
Instead of speaking about the republic that might be created, people spoke about ‘getting a bit of the action’. Suddenly it was no longer important to have just one house for shelter, or to have another for pension purposes, in case a family split up or somebody retired. One needed a string of houses – and thus our property bubble was created, within a bubble of speculative capitalism that had flowed from an attack on the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in the United States, which had introduced regulations following the Great Crash. President Clinton gave in after several years of lobbying by those who stated that it was necessary to get rid of all the regulations so that the instruments needed by the market could be pushed out to absorb what was regarded as an endless flow of credit. What was this? It was an irrational form of capitalism, and thus one of the projects now is the idea of whether capitalism can save itself again.
I believe that as Ireland moves into a time when we can celebrate the founding of my party, the great Lockout, and the 1916 Rising, we need to think about an entirely different kind of society. I am immensely practical about this. I can suggest – I have spoken and I have written elsewhere and will continue to do so – that what one would do if one wanted to deliver what I am describing in terms of political participation, administrative fairness and the equality of the right to communicate, would be to speak about a floor of citizenship below which people would not be allowed to fall. One would make people secure from the time of birth to very old age – when at the moment they wonder whether they will have to leave their homes to die, as they frequently do within eighteen months of being sent to a nursing home. One would make it possible that children share the same class, and for that period of their lives at least would be able to be equal with regard to education. In addition to this, people would have decent housing.
This was the agenda when Sean O’Casey wrote about disparity. James Connolly took the Irish Citizen Army, with its egalitarian agenda, and placed it side by side with nationalism. The lesson we learned from this was that when the egalitarian socialist agenda was placed side by side with the nationalist agenda, it would be the socialist agenda which would lose. This was in the dialogue immediately before the meeting of the First Dáil, when Michael Collins told the IRB it need not be too bothered with the content of the Democratic Programme, because they were just going through with it to keep Labour onside.
Those of us in favour of a version of Ireland where no one will fall below a certain level of security in social and economic terms must say it not only to ourselves but also to Europe. In addition, a highly participative, inclusive republic was the one in the vision of those who made the case for Irish independence at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. It was this which was stolen from the people after the foundation of the State, when the conservatives marched into all the principal professorships, including education and philosophy. UCD became a stable for conservatism, and suddenly one had the continuation of an administrative nightmare and the robbing of the people of the delivery of the republic with regard to their ordinary lives.
Frequently, people such as the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, currently in favour with the extreme Left in Europe, have said to me that if things are as I describe them, then what is needed is a form of terror that would sweep everything away, and enable us to start all over again. A terrible price would of course have to be paid for this, so therefore one must put one’s faith in representative democracy – and having done so, one wants it to work. If one wants it to work, one must be open to transformation, to making the type of institutional changes that can deliver a real alternative. How could this be carried through? There is need, as a beginning, for a discourse in which we are able to speak about the vulnerabilities that matter, and where there is not a huge gulf between what we say in here and what is happening on the street.
People wonder why poverty has to reproduce itself in the same family from one generation to another, or from one area to another, and wonder why there is a difference between the quality of schools in one place and the quality of those in another. God did not make it like that. Nature did not make it like that. The people in the so-called Irish republic made it like that, and they maintained it like that. I remember in County Clare when one could point to the two or three people in the Labour Party because they lived in a galvanised house. People would explain that they were Labour in the same way as they would say they were on the margins of society – and they were. Therefore, with regard to thinking that the Finance Bill is necessary for this, that or the other, I hope the new government realises that the model, which is broken, should not be repaired, and that there is a discourse now which is wider and which is not only in Ireland but in Europe, where citizens are wondering what institutions might best express that which we wish to share with each other, where the concept of interdependency is accepted, and where it would be regarded as obscene to state that radical individualism is what is important and what must drive us. All that radical individualism, with its privileged view of professions and its side-of-the-mouth politics with regard to benefit and privilege, is what must be rejected.
This has a practical expression in Europe. If we create here a radical, inclusive republic, we will place it in a social Europe which accepts the interdependency of peoples rather than the aspirations of the elite property-owning classes and individual countries. We would then be able to be a region in the global sense, which offered guarantees about labour, security and peace. It would be a powerful moral voice in the world with regard to having alternatives to war and allowing people to initiate and follow their own paths to development, which would be very attractive.
With regard to the Bill, the question the people ask, which the new government must address, is Why? The new government must speak endlessly about jobs. This is the point for people who lose their jobs or are told that they must be made unemployed. Everyone here is very reasonable, and I ask people to be at least accurate about one thing I remember in this House, which is the night in September 2008 when the Labour Party was left alone. The vote was 129 votes to 18 votes. We were the 18. We voted, and sustained debate through two nights, with regard to an unlimited guarantee that joined the debts of our speculative banks to the deficit issues of the economy. This is what we are facing tonight.
I also say this now looking forward: I hope the discourse we will have now will speak about inclusion. This Bill contains some good things, but there are ridiculous ones. I will give one example of what I meant by the phrases ‘political power’ and ‘administrative power’. In my long time in here, people agitated, for example, for the equality legislation that was introduced by my colleague Mervyn Taylor. People imagined that when we had got the equality legislation, we had arrived at a particular point, but the political science would have indicated that this political power was useless without administrative power. It was only when the equality legislation was followed through with the Equality Authority and the Combat Poverty Agency that it was possible to administer the benefit that had been won politically. That is the meaning of administrative power – and is why we lost the Combat Poverty Agency and the Equality Agency to the Right, and had all the cuts. That is what citizens in a republic want: they want more political power and more administrative power. They want to communicate their vulnerability and want to be able to respond to each other’s interdependency. The very last thing they want is more of the same, conveyed in such language as that terrible saying ‘We are where we are’. Such language is what has brought us to this point now. That is why I am proud to be president of the Labour Party. If we have failed from time to time, what has never been in doubt is that we were speaking about a real republic that has yet to be built in this State.
Speaking on the Second Stage of the Finance Bill, 26 March 2011
2.
Transforming Ireland, 2011–2016: The Role of Uachtarán na hÉireann
That Ireland is in need of transformation no one can now doubt.
Owing to the actions of those in whom trust was placed, be it by commission or omission, we have lost much of our economic sovereignty and independence. Our international reputation has also been damaged. Yet within Ireland powerful capacities, great intelligence and talent remain, capable of acknowledging and rejecting that which has failed, and, even more importantly, capable of recognising those principles upon which our shared future must now be built.
This transformation must be one that deepens engagement rather then bowing to cynicism – that extends rather than erodes democracy – and that initiates changes not just in our political structures, but also in our institutions, our language, our way of dealing with each other, and in our consciousness.
It is my conviction that a certain version of Ireland which prevailed in our recent past must now be regarded as over and rejected. That narrow version of Ireland was not based on the best of our traditions, nor drawn from the true potential of the contemporary period. Rather it was characterised by an extreme and unrestrained individualism and an almost reverential approach to wealth and speculation that too often pushed social concerns to the margins. There was a real disconnect between an irresponsible elite and the ongoing struggles of many citizens who found themselves excluded.
This version of Irish society was destructive at home, and it damaged our reputation abroad. In Europe and elsewhere, indeed, some commentators were astounded at the unrestrained arrogance of some of our spokespersons.
It must then be a starting point, in the transformation that we need, that we recognise that there should be no going back to that inadequate and unworthy version of ourselves.
Yet Ireland must also now, I believe, move beyond recrimination and beyond cynicism, and draw on our strengths and on the very best aspects of ourselves – our generous humanity, our humour, our rich heritage and our creativity – to create something new, emancipatory and transformative. I believe that the presidency has a powerful contribution to make to this transformation.
As someone who in another role, as a political scientist, taught in this area, I am very aware of the potential and indeed the limitations of the office of the president.
The presidency has essentially three main functions. It has a constitutional role and a ceremonial role, both of which must be conducted with dignity and sophistication, recognising that one is speaking not just for oneself but for all the Irish people. The third area is where the character of the presidency is defined: the discretionary area available to the president. How it is used in terms of choice of themes addressed, whom you speak to, and when, are matters of great importance, as was demonstrated in the previous presidencies. It is these discretionary choices that define the values that are lodged in the incumbent’s interpretation of the office.
The president cannot be an organising point of opposition to the government of the day – but has the capacity to address important issues that are far wider in theme and time.
The affirmation that the president of Ireland makes on taking office states: ‘I will dedicate my abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland.’ In Irish it is even stronger: ‘Mo lándicheall a dhéanamh ar son leasa is fónaimh mhuintir na hÉireann.’
These words are a powerful mandate, a great challenge – and part of what inspired me to seek the presidency.
As a candidate for president, I offer a vision of a radically inclusive citizenship, in a creative society, worthy of a real republic – making us proud to be Irish in the world.
My candidacy, and this vision, are underpinned by years of service to the public at every level, from councillor to Cabinet minister to president of the European Council of Culture Ministers. My participation in public life has always been characterised by a genuine independence of mind and a strong policy-driven emphasis in everything I have done.
In deciding last year to seek a nomination for the presidency, I deliberately announced the decision early. Rather then return to the Dáil last February, I decided, out of respect for the constituents I had represented for twenty-five years, and as a mark of my commitment to this new and important challenge, to step aside and devote myself entirely and uncompromisingly to the campaign to become president of Ireland: an honour, and an opportunity, which I take very seriously.
Returning to the four important and deeply interconnected aspects of Ireland’s transformation which I have proposed in my vision for the presidency – an inclusive citizenship, a creative society, a real republic, and pride in being Irish in the world – I believe that Uachtarán na hÉireann has both an inspirational and a practical role to play in each of these areas.
A Real Republic
I believe that, in many senses, the republic of equals which was sought, and which inspired so many who took part in the 1913 Lockout, the Easter Rising and the War of Independence, has never been fully realised. It has, however, stayed alive as an ideal and has re-emerged in movements for social justice and equality throughout the years, and in campaigns for participation and inclusion.
The time has now come to reassert that sense of possibility and to turn our collective efforts to the creation of a real republic. That real republic has to be based on a recognition of the dignity of every citizen, irrespective of gender, capacity, orientation or means. It is that recognition of dignity which is the common principle across all cultures where there is a meaningful pursuit of human rights.
If elected president of Ireland, I will support those initiatives where citizens are again actively imagining and debating our shared vision as a nation. I will also take a strong interest in the deliberations and outcomes of the National Constitutional Convention proposed by the government.
I would further hope to enhance such processes of interrogation and renewal by becoming patron to a series of Presidency Seminars, inviting participation from a wide cross-section of society and addressing wider issues, such as the restoration of trust in our institutions, participation and inclusion within our communities, Ireland’s role in developing a more generous social European project, our relationship with the environment, deepening connections with those who have left, and issues of global interdependency.
Inclusive Citizenship
In recent years, in my book Causes for Concern, and in a number of papers, I have been consistently calling for a meaningful debate on citizenship – a real debate which, while it would include the generosity that is involved in volunteering, would go much further and also debate an appropriate rights base for citizenship.
I believe we must now promote a positive vision of what it means to be a citizen in Ireland. This citizenship should be based on equality and respect, with a basic level of rights and participation – a citizenship floor – below which no one should be allowed to fall. We need to move away from radical individualism towards a radical kind of inclusion.
Inclusion means valuing diversity in all its forms and challenging exclusion wherever it occurs. No one in our society should experience the destructive effects of discrimination, isolation or rejection.
Inclusion means celebrating solidarity by recognising the aspirations, concerns, creativity and potential of every citizen, regardless of their age, orientation, capacities or means. Inclusive citizenship also brings shared responsibility – a life that goes beyond the self to include those around us and, indeed, the generations yet to come.
If elected president, I will use the discretion that the office allows to highlight initiatives for inclusion across Ireland and actively to promote a citizenship based on equality, respect, solidarity and participation.
The Creative Society
In terms of Ireland’s reputation, one of our greatest strengths, constantly renewed, has been the acknowledged creativity of Irish people. This is a powerful resource in the reconstruction of a better version of ourselves both at home and abroad.
Ireland has produced, and continues to produce, wonderful writers, artists, playwrights, poets and musicians – yet such artists are only one example of what can be possible in a creative society in which each citizen is given the opportunity to imagine and contribute. The creative society cannot be imposed from above; it is built on creativity made possible in communities. Properly respected, the cultural space can be an invitation to push the boundaries of the possible – enfranchising us all in our capacity for living, and enriching the social and economic life of the nation.
As Ireland’s first Minister for the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, I saw the transformative potential of creativity – a potential I helped realise by means of practical measures such as the redevelopment of the Irish film industry; the setting up of Teilifís na Gaeilge, now TG4; the removal of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Acts, so that the voices of all could be heard by all; the establishment of a network of local arts and cultural venues throughout the State; but also by seeking to forge a different kind of national relationship with the arts, moving them from the margins of society to the very centre of our economic and social development.
I saw the potential of creativity then, and see it even more clearly today. Creativity is not limited to the artistic, or aesthetic, aspects of our lives. The real republic of which I speak is one that is creative in research; creative in innovation and tradition; creative in how we do business; creative in its supports for and celebration of young people and older people; creative in peacemaking, diplomacy and international development; creative in sport and dance; creative in multilingualism and in our use of our own language; creative in our relationship with our diaspora and with those who have joined us in Ireland, particularly in recent years; creative in how we speak to each other, in how we relate to one another and to our environment.
There is rich potential, as I recognised as minister and see still today, in the creative industries – seedbeds of innovation and collaboration which can offer rich rewards in the creation of new jobs at the local and national level and in strengthening Ireland’s part in the knowledge economy. Indeed, creativity is the vital ingredient in such economic activities as software development, the creation and development of new electronic games for a vast world market, animation, film, studio production, and indeed the audiovisual and film industry, whose value grew from €11 million at the beginning of my time as minister to €187 million at its end, and is now estimated at over €500 million.
However, such creative industries can only flourish in a sustainable way if they are rooted in creative communities where every child and adult has the opportunity to contribute and imagine and where there is access to the cultural and creative spaces for all citizens. The creative society invites us to challenge the boundaries of the inevitable and open up to new possibilities, to the suggestions of the heart as well as the head, or even more importantly, to avoid the unnecessary choice between them.
Ireland, and Being Irish in the World
The president is Ireland’s face to the outside world, and should draw on the best traditions on which our international reputation is built. This includes excellence in culture and the arts, creativity in business, pride in our heritage, respect earned through our record in humanitarian work and in peacekeeping, and the important contributions and connections made by our diaspora in so many countries.
A priority of my presidency will be to strengthen and deepen all strands of our international reputation. I believe that being Irish in the world is something we should all be proud of.
Another priority will be the strengthening of Ireland’s connection with its wide diaspora. As far back as 1969, I began research on the subject of emigration, and I have retained a burning interest in the fate of our emigrants and the role of our diaspora since then. My sisters emigrated to Manchester as young women and my nephews and nieces live in England. My uncle and aunt from my father’s family are buried in Australia. As a sociologist, I actually ran the first course on the sociology of emigration in this country. In fact, the early papers I gave to the Patrick MacGill Summer School were on the topic of emigration and how it had informed writings such as that of Patrick MacGill, Peadar O’Donnell and Donall Mac Amhalaigh. I also contributed over the years to a number of Dáil and Oireachtas Committee debates on this subject, urging the establishment of effective support structures for the Irish in Britain, and seeking to change and regularise the status of the undocumented Irish in the United States. It has been my practice in recent years to visit Irish Centres in Britain regularly to demonstrate my interest in, and solidarity with, the Irish there. As president of the Labour Party, I am particularly proud of the fact that it was Ruairi Quinn, as Minister in 1984, who introduced the State Committee Díon, as the first ever grant-giving agency to aid and assist emigrant voluntary care agencies abroad.
As president, I would wish to reach out to all sections and all generations of the Irish abroad, particularly those young people who have recently left. Wherever they make their new lives, be it Manchester, Toronto, Beijing or Buenos Aires, we must, I believe, emphasise to them the important role that they can still play, even while abroad, in contributing to the cultural, economic and social fabric of Ireland – inviting them to maintain their connection with Ireland, celebrate their Irishness, and play some part in our national recovery. In this regard, the building of stronger Irish networks in all countries where the Irish assemble is of critical importance.
As president, I would hope to be patron of these emerging networks, which should serve not only as valuable and necessary support mechanisms for the Irish within those countries, but also as business-related networks which could, over time, promote new employment projects in Ireland and strengthen access to international markets for Irish companies, including in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil.
Representing ourselves abroad in our best sense means celebrating all that makes Ireland unique, and in that sense I will also be proud to promote the Irish language as a living, vibrant and beautifully expressive language.
Returning then to the theme of this summer school: transformation. I believe that the transformation we need must be rooted in the best instincts of both the head and the heart. It is something that can never be delivered by cold market economics alone.
Over the years, most of the genuinely progressive changes we have seen in Ireland have been made possible by those who followed that generous and courageous instinct of the heart which tells us to reach out to others and to respect their essential dignity.
I have been proud to be part of many of those struggles for civil and political rights, including a rights-based approach to disability, the rights of women and children, and those discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. I have been proud also to have helped drive change on issues such as the ending of the status of the illegitimacy of children, divorce, same-sex unions, access to contraception, equality of opportunity and equal pay.
There were times too when a price had to be paid for transformation – as when the pursuit of political principle and a genuine independence of mind led to the loss of seats for the late Jim Kemmy and myself in the 1980s.
The same values, the same commitment that have consistently underpinned my work for justice and equality at home and abroad over the last thirty years, now inform this vision I have offered for Ireland’s next presidency.
In summary, I offer a record of principle and practice and a vision for Ireland based on clear values of inclusion, respect, creativity and solidarity. I believe that the knowledge and experience I have gained at every level of Irish society, and in representing Ireland abroad, will be of immense benefit to me as president.
Connolly spoke of the importance of employing whatever ‘gifts of hand or brain one has, to deliver for one’s fellow citizens’. In seeking to take up that challenge in the office of president, I offer both head and heart.
As a child growing up in Clare, I knew poverty and loss. But it was years later, as the first member of my family to go to college, that I found the ideas that matched the instinct for equality which I felt in my heart. That is why I have always sought to share these ideas with my fellow citizens, and why I set them out in this vision for our presidency and our future. In a republic, there should be no idea in any area of our life lived together, whether in politics, economy or society, that is considered beyond the reach of a citizen.
Ideas and creativity are two of the most democratic and transformative forces we have, and they belong to all equally. Recently, I have been travelling right across the country, and I have drawn inspiration from that very active nine months of engaging with, and listening to, people throughout Ireland. Everywhere I go I meet citizens who want to talk about ideas, who are tired of being underestimated – young people in particular who want to play their part in a real republic.
I believe that our country is full of potential. I believe that there are traditional decencies which remain very strong. I believe that the country is peopled with imaginative, creative citizens, with unlimited potential and possibility, and that the role of the president is to be an inspiration and support to this new Ireland, which we are all called to build. It is a time to play to our strengths, to enhance our reputation.
I believe that Ireland can, and must, emerge from this present crisis with a more responsible model of economy and state, and with engaged citizens who will, together, ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. In the future, we may be proud to remember how, together, we built something real out of the worst of times, something both visionary and practical.
