merrion street

Good evening everyone. I’m very pleased to be here to mark the Irish launch of the Global Diaspora Strategies Toolkit.

It’s a highly-impressive, timely publication.

And Kingsley Aikins and Nicola White can be proud of their work in recording best practice, around the world, in this crucial area of Diaspora research.

I want to pay special tribute to Kingsley. For many years, as President and CEO of the Ireland Funds, he helped to raise hundreds of millions of Euro for projects on the island of Ireland, focussed on community development, education and reconciliation.

Along with his colleagues at the Ireland Funds, Kingsley helped create that vital network of influential people around the world with that all-important connection to Ireland.

That network has delivered in a significant way for Ireland, North and South. Both in supporting the peace process and facilitating the creation of jobs and economic development.

During his period with the Ireland Funds, the organisation became a world leader in the areas of Philanthropy and Diaspora development, winning the admiration and respect of business and political leaders across the globe.

Indeed, it was one such admirer, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who asked that this toolkit be assembled, in the run up to a Diaspora Conference organised by the US administration, earlier this year.

Kingsley understands that the Irish Diaspora is what I call..... the muintir of our heart and imagination.

He knows, instinctively, that this great scattering contains the very essence of who we are and who we can and will be, in the years and generations to come.

Kingsley - míle buíochas duit for your continued contribution to this country.

As you know, the Government takes a broad and inclusive approach to defining our global community.

From the sixth century, when our monks brought Europe from the Dark Ages, the Irish have had a sense... that Irishness and all that it signifies or implies....involves the strange geology of heart and mind.

Our Diaspora having no limits to those Irish people born overseas or who have taken up Irish citizenship.

Rather, our Diaspora has always been a more intuitive affair.

Where we gather to our national flag and to our nation’s heart, all those who feel or wish themselves.....to be.....of Ireland..... And that’s the purpose of the Certificate of Irish Heritage launched by the Tánaiste in New York last week.

The first Certificate being awarded to the family of Joseph Hunter - a New York City fireman, last seen striding towards the South Tower of the World Trade Centre with Squad 288 from Queens.

It’s estimated that over one million people, born on the island of Ireland, live abroad.

A remarkable figure for a population of some six million.

The Diaspora works out at 70 million.

70 million men and women.

Our Diaspora. Our people.

That’s some opportunity.

There is something deep in our Irishness brings us together.....creates that need to connect.

Perhaps, a deep appreciation of the emigrant experience.

An experience that we are living again, due to circumstances this current government is fighting hard to change.

Out of this historical loss of generations......this great Dispossessed..... has emerged the modern Irish global family- unique in its collective experience and in its willingness to participate in the future development and prosperity of this island.

But it is more than that.

It’s almost a sense of....... possession.

That sense of being claimed by and claiming the country of ones heart.

It’s in the fragment of a poem, the grey of the sky, the piece of stone you pick up from Caislean Ri Chinn Toirc...imagining....

it’s in the perfect voice of Iarla O Lionaird..... who we are.....

On the practical level, Ireland is rightly regarded as a world leader in working with our global community to deliver change at home and abroad.

There’s no better example than the Peace Process in Northern Ireland.

The influence and access of many Irish connected figures abroad, particularly in the United States, played a critical role at key moments in the process.

Successive Irish Governments have recognised this potential and implemented policies aimed at ensuring that our Diaspora remain engaged with and supportive of this country.

And its the Government’s Irish Abroad Unit within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that assists us in this objective. They are focused entirely on matters relating to our emigrants, investing in Irish communities throughout the world, developing strategies aimed at further enhancing the relationship between Ireland and the Diaspora.

In ten days, 300 of the most influential people connected to Ireland overseas, will assemble at Dublin Castle for the second Global Irish Economic Forum.

This forum will further develop a structured engagement between the Government and leading business figures from our Diaspora and from among our friends abroad.

It will also play an important role in our ongoing work at rebuilding Ireland’s international reputation by allowing the Government to outline, in detail, its economic objectives and strategy to this influential international group.

It is about harnessing all of our resources, at home and abroad, to feed into our economic recovery.

During this two day event, the Government will announce details of a number of new Diaspora-related initiatives.

We will also ask participants for new ideas or initiatives that can be of benefit to all of us.

As Taoiseach, I’m absolutely determined that the initiatives and momentum generated at Dublin Castle will be built upon.

The toolkit we’re launching here tonight, highlights the huge potential that exists for Ireland and our global community if we can continue to work together effectively.

Modern technologies and the enduring sense of connection felt by so many of the global Irish community towards Ireland opens up new and exciting opportunities for the relationship between the Irish, at home and abroad.

Our global family may be diverse and dispersed, but it remains firmly committed to and interested in this country’s long term prosperity.

Today, we in Ireland, and our communities abroad, have a unique chance to come together and to forge a new path through the 21st century.

I believe seizing this opportunity to be a fitting tribute to all those who went before.

And as importantly, an invocation, of all those who are of Ireland..... or wish to be of Ireland.... to come.