MacGill SUMMER SCHOOL:THERE HAS been a complete change of tone at the highest level of Government over the past year thanks to Ireland's improved economic prospects, Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has said.
He told the opening night of the MacGill Summer School that when the Coalition took office last year, Ireland’s very existence as an economic entity was in question.
“There were days when I feared for the financial survival of the State,” said Mr Gilmore, who was delivering the 12th Annual John Hume Lecture at the school in Glenties, Co Donegal.
He had attended a meeting last Wednesday of the Economic Management Council, along with the Taoiseach and Ministers Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin.
“What struck me about last Wednesday, in particular, was how different the tone of the meeting was, compared to some of the EMC meetings that we had in the first few months of the life of this Government.
“In those early days, the crisis that we faced was existential. There were days when I feared for the financial survival of the State.
“Today, while the problems we face are still grave, we are in a much stronger position,” the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Highlighting the changes in Northern Ireland and John Hume’s role in bringing them about, Mr Gilmore pointed to the changes taking place south of the Border as well. “Twenty years ago, homosexuality was effectively illegal in the Republic and divorce was banned by the Constitution.
“Today, we live in a far more open and tolerant Ireland, where we have civil partnerships for gay couples and the question of full marriage equality is being put to a constitutional convention.”
This year’s summer school theme is “Reforming and Rebuilding our State” and Mr Gilmore commented that this was “not a goal in itself but a means to building a society that better serves its people”.
He added: “The men and women who founded the Labour Party came from thatched cottages and tenement slums. They were born into a world where the circumstances of your birth very often dictated the horizons of your life.
“No one can say that, in the past 50 years, economic progress in Ireland has not brought social progress.”
On health issues, he praised the “enormous work” in the area of primary care carried out by Minister of State Róisín Shortall.
On church-State issues, he said it was time to build a new relationship, “based on mutual understanding and respect but also on the primacy of personal freedom”.
On the future of the news media, he said: “A growing number of people are no longer buying newspapers and are getting their news online. Twenty years from now, will newspapers as we know them still exist? “Where will people turn for reliable information and commentary? How will people be sure that the information that they are getting is accurate, or that commentary is reflective rather than reactive.”
He added: “We need a free media that will hold Government and other institutions to account. We need a media that will provide for fair and balanced debate.”
The official opening of the week-long summer school, named after the Glenties-born writer Patrick MacGill (1889-1963), was performed by the French ambassador to Ireland, Emmanuelle d’Achon.
The Taoiseach will be among the speakers at today’s proceedings where he will give his own views on issues of reform.
Former government minister and leader of the Progressive Democrats Desmond O’Malley will speak on the need for transparency and accountability in the political system.
Another former minister and PD leader, Michael McDowell, will share a platform tonight with Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton at a session of the school in memory of the political scientist Prof Peter Mair, who died last year.
