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President Michael D Higgins at The
Exchange, Buncrana
15.09.14
President Michael D
Higgins' address at The Exchange, Buncrana, on
Saturday, September 13, 2014.
I am delighted to be here in this beautiful part of
the country, whose striking landscapes are as
renowned as the hospitality of the people. I would
like to express my thanks to Doctor Adrian Grant,
Chairman, and his colleague in The Exchange
Management Committee, Bernie Doherty, for their kind
invitation to visit Buncrana this morning. May I
also thank all of you for your warm welcome.
It is a particular pleasure to be here in this
building in its new life. A building which once
housed the town’s Social Welfare Office has started
a new existence as a hub for social enterprise and
community activities. Of course, this is not to
suggest that state services should ever be seen as
competitors with self-reliant community initiatives:
a partnership between both is essential to the
thriving of our economy and society.
I was interested to learn that the idea for this
impressive facility came from community and social
entrepreneurs who saw the need to complement the
basic services provided by the state and who
recognised that opportunities existed to enrich the
local socio-economic fabric, and to break new ground
by harnessing the energy and creativity of
grassroots.
The activities of the six member groups who founded
The Exchange constitute in an exemplary way a vision
of human flourishing that goes beyond the provision
of any minimal version of basic needs: indeed music,
dance and drama, civic education, a concern for
mental health, or a knowledge of the local history
are essential components of our leading rich and
fulfilling existences. It is wonderful to see local
community groups involved in various sectors of
activity come together and share their rich
experience under the same roof, or, as it is, under
the umbrella of a single organisation bearing the
beautiful name of “The Exchange”.
As unemployment remains the most pressing challenge
to be addressed in Ireland today, in particular
long-term unemployment and youth unemployment, and
in particular in border areas, it is important that
communities can avail of schemes such as this one,
which not only generate new possibilities for local
economic activity by breaking the boundaries between
the economic, the social and the cultural, but also,
at the same time, create the conditions for all
members of the community, even those without a job,
to feel that they can fully participate in their
society.
May I, then, very sincerely congratulate all those
involved in The Exchange for championing a model of
economic development that is socially embedded.
Indeed the economy and society are profoundly
embedded in one another, and as we are moving away
from bogus models based on often undeclared, and
perilous assumptions as to the autonomy and
rationality of “the market”, it is to be hoped that
there will emerge a widely shared discourse that
measures economic value in terms of its social
gains.
All parts of society and of the community can share
in, and contribute to, our economic renewal. As the
Action Plan for Jobs 2012 noted, there is a strong
Social Enterprise base in Ireland, which, if
developed, could have significant positive impact on
job creation.
Let us consider the numbers for a moment: the
non-profit sector in Ireland, in its broadest sense,
employs an estimated 100,000 people, generating an
income of over €6 billion. Within this, the social
enterprise sector employs between 25,000 and 33,000
people in over 1,400 social enterprises, with a
total income of around €1.4 billion.
The European Commission has placed the social
economy and social innovation at the heart of its
strategy for the coming decade. Social enterprise
already accounts for about 6% of GDP across the EU.
And if the Irish social enterprise sector were to
approach mean EU levels, it is estimated that there
could be at least 65,000 people employed in social
enterprises in Ireland.
Thus social enterprise is a small but growing part
of Ireland’s enterprise base and has the potential
to play an even more significant role in the
creation of more jobs and the building of vibrant,
sustainable and socially inclusive communities. With
the appropriate enabling effort, there is no reason
why this cannot be achieved. We can see the results
of such cooperation between Government, state
agencies, local LEADER and partnership groups, and
the community and voluntary sector here today in
Buncrana.
Social enterprise, of course, is not a recent
invention. Rooted as it is in local and community
development, it goes right back to the early days of
the co-operative movement and is very much linked to
a vision of the economy as being multifunctional and
multidimensional.
It is interesting to speculate on how extreme
individualism in a culture of insatiability came to
be privileged over co-operative economic activity.
At its roots that choice is built on an assumption
that greed or a possessive instinct is central to
human nature rather than a desire to cooperate in
the meeting of needs and in the pursuit of real
personal and social flourishing.
The common aim among social enterprises is to
address social need. They are set apart from
traditional charities because they gain some income
from trading, and see commercial activity as an
important feature in ensuring their long-term
sustainability. They are, on the other hand, set
apart from conventional business because the
financial surpluses, or profits, are used to fulfil
a social mission and are not distributed to
shareholders.
They contribute to improving the local social fabric
and to promoting in many ways the diversification of
the economy. Importantly, social enterprises have
the ability to provide jobs to those most distant
from the main labour market, both spatially and
socially.
It is my profound conviction that this model, as
business model, as model of healthy territorial
development, and as model of ethical concern, has a
long and thriving future ahead of it. It needs to be
given a far more central role by policy makers,
although things are already improving at global
level.
In the letter he wrote to me last April, Bernie
Doherty said that he hoped that this building would
become “a place of note, a place of learning, of
ideas exchanged, debated, argued and embraced.” Well
it seems to me, having seen what you have achieved
within these walls, that The Exchange does provide a
space for the people of Buncrana to stand back and
take a critical look at the world they live in and
to creatively explore ways of improving what they
see.
This is a place that encourages people both to
cultivate new personal skills and to participate,
consciously and actively, in the development of
society. It is a place in which people are given the
backing they need to champion new ideas, make a
difference in their community, and forge new ways of
thinking about the challenges that face us now and
into the future.
We are fortunate in this country to have such a
vibrant and diverse non-profit sector – thousands of
organisations that contribute to Irish society in a
myriad of ways to the welfare of Irish citizens.
I have no doubt that this initiative will inspire
many others, and that it will have a lasting,
positive impact on the lives of the people of
Buncrana.
May I thank you again for you invitation to visit
The Exchange. It is a pleasure to be here with you
and I wish the very best in your future endeavours.
I am confident that you are well equipped to face
whatever challenges this future holds. As the saying
goes 'Ní neart go cur le chéile' - There is no
strength without unity! |
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