Peace and prosperity on the island of Ireland have gone hand in hand over recent years, former US president Mr Bill Clinton said last night during a lecture in Dublin.
Before 400 specially-invited guests in Trinity College Dublin, Mr Clinton said the Irish peace process was "Exhibit A" in the armoury of those who argue that the world is now more interdependent than ever before.
In future, people will have to find "non-zero-sum solutions" in which all can win. "The Good Friday agreement is the embodiment of a non-zero solution. Peace and prosperity are intertwined and we have to look at this on a more global basis.
"It is obvious to anyone from the outside who has watched that progress and prosperity have been closely intertwined. This place illustrates more closely than anywhere else that we are in a time when common sense and common decency have much in common and are maybe converging."
Events in Ireland hold lessons for other parts of the world since the world is now more complex and more interdependent. Quoting an American writer, he said interdependency and society's complexity are linked.
Reflecting on his life, he said he had come to believe that "our lives turn out by what we think is important".
"Every day we make choices, about what we do, say or feel, about who we love."
The lecture, sponsored by Independent News and Media, is the eighth to have taken place. Other keynote speakers have included former South African president Mr Nelson Mandela.
The South African leader had, said Mr Clinton, become one of his closest friends. Once Mr Mandela had told him how he had to leave his hate behind so that he could be truly "free" of his white South African jailers.
Joking with his audience, he quoted President John Quincy Adams, who once said that there was nothing "more pathetic" than a former president. "He actually went on to disprove that," he said quickly.
Paying a special word of notice to Ms Celia Larkin, the Taoiseach's partner, Mr Clinton thanked Mr Ahern for being "a great friend". He also mentioned the contribution made by his predecessor, Mr Albert Reynolds.
The day began shortly after 11 a.m. when Mr Clinton visited Aras An Uachtarain for an audience with the President, Mrs McAleese. Asked if he was enjoying life outside the Oval Office, he replied: "I am having a great life. I like the new senator from New York very much."
Later he had lunch with the Independent newspaper editor in Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Fitzwilliam Square townhouse.
Speaking in Fitzwilliam Square, Mr Clinton, who spent a considerable time signing autographs, said: "I am building a library and a foundation back home. I am about to open an office in Harlem in New York. I am working in India on development, particularly in the area that was devastated by the earthquake; in Africa on the AIDS crisis and developing civil society. I have got a lot to do. And I am having a good time."
Later, he had a private meeting in Government Buildings with Mr Ahern before he delivered the lecture in Trinity College.
