President M.D. Higgins speaking with Tom Healy
'The work of this Institute, and others like it, is critical in advancing reasoned moral arguments about how the issues of work, employment, unemployment and social security are to be approached' said President Michael D. Higgins at the inaugural Dónal Nevin lecture at the Communications Workers Union HQ in Dublin on Thursday 23rd May. The family of the late Dónal Nevin in whose name the Institute is called was present. A full copy of the President's speech is available on the President's website .
The President identified a number of key themes regarding public economic discourse, research and education including the following remarks:
'And on an occasion such as this if I may be permitted to conclude with some wishes for the future of the Institute; wishes that go beyond the influence I know it will have and the good it will do; my wish is that it be rooted in grounded theory, be multi-disciplinary and that it locate its theory in the culture and moral instincts of those with emancipatory intent in scholarship.'
'The critical and independent analysis of an Institute such as the Nevin Economic Research Institute is an invaluable contribution to our democratic discourse'.
'The public need a pluralism of perspectives honestly stated.'
'Fundamentally, what the Institute and the Nevin Institute is doing is seeking to instigate a public discourse on the interconnectedness between moral philosophy and political economy.'
'The current discourse among many people has a taken-for-granted reality suggesting an inevitability to be uncritically accepted. This runs the risk of becoming ritualistic, allowing what is banal, and what has limited capacity or originality, lesser connection to the reality and the agony of the world. More seriously it can even sink to being an instrument of ideological propaganda.'
In my introductory remarks welcoming the President I stated:
A Uachtaráin cuireann sé áthas mór orainn fáilte a chur romhat chuig an Léacht speisialta seo. Cuireann sé tús le sraith léachtanna Dhónal Nevin. Tionólfar an Léacht seo gach bliain as seo amach agus is mór an onóir í go bhfuil tú anseo inár measc, a Uachtaráin, chun tús a chur leis an sraith seo. Cuirimid fáilte freisin roimh do bhean chéile agus roimh gach duine atá anseo inniu. Airím go speisialta Clann Dhonal Nevin - Moira agus Anne atá I láthair .
[President it gives us great joy to welcome you to this special lecture. It commences a series of lectures in memory of Dónal Nevin. It will be held every year. It is a great honour that you are here, President, to commence this lecture series. We welcome your wife Mrs Higgins and all gathered here this evening. I would like to mention especially the family of the late Donal Nevin, Maura and Anne who are present with us this evening.]
Nuair a bunaíodh an NERI bliain ó shin bhí sé mar aidhm againn polasaithe agus na féidireachtaí a bhaineadh leo a fhorbairt agus a léiriú. Measaimid go bhfuil práinn mhór ag gabháil le briseadh ón gcinniúnachas marfach atá i réim san Eoraip agus anseo.
[When the NERI was established a year ago it has been our aim to develop and clarify policies and options. We believe that there is an urgency to break with the deadly fatalism that has gripped much of Europe and here.]
Tá gá mór le ceannaireacht, nua, crógach agus intleachtúil
[There is a need for a new, courageous intellectual leadership]
Not only is it a great honour that you can give this lecture at this important time in Europe and in Ireland: the Nevin Economic Research Institute and all present here today look forward to hearing what you have to say. Our task is to research. Research requires deep, careful and honest endeavour. The questions we ask, the analysis we undertake and the conclusions, suggestions and recommendations we make in the sphere of moral political economy cannot be separated from our values - those things we care about and those things we share in common - the patrimony of all Europeans and Irish people of which the Irish trade union movement is part and from which the NERI is proud to take its source.
Mar atá scríofa I ngairdín an chuimhneacháin díreach cóngarch d'oifigeacha an NERI:
[As it is written in poem 'An Aisling' by Liam MacUistín in the Garden of Remembrance near the offices of the NERI]
Rinneadh samhradh den gheimhreadh. Rinneadh saoirse den daoirse agus d'fhágamar agaibhse mar oidhreacht í. A ghlúnta na saoirse cuimhnígí orainne, glúnta na haislinge.
'Winter became summer. Bondage became freedom and this we left to you as your inheritance. O generations of freedom remember us, the generations of the vision'
And as you have so eloquently written, President:
'The stuff of hope beckons out of the darkness...'