Launch of Book and Presentation to Minister Paschal Donohoe
Provost's House, Trinity College Dublin
05th September
Good afternoon,
and on behalf of the College, welcome, everyone, to this launch of the 13th edition of the Economy of Ireland. We will be hearing from the editors about the evolution of the book, from its first edition in 1975 to this, its latest edition.
Let me just say that I’m immensely proud of the contribution of Trinity people to the series and this edition, which showcases the strength of economics as a discipline here in this university.
I congratulate John and Francis. It’s a measure of their success and of the book’s importance that we have here today, to launch the book, the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, who is himself a distinguished Trinity graduate in Politics and Economics. He arrived here on a scholarship; he left with a first-class honours, having served as secretary to the Phil. And his subsequent career, first in business and then in politics, has more than justified the high expectations of his stellar college years.
The Minister arrived as an undergraduate in 1992. For the latest edition of Trinity Tales, he wrote a memorable and moving account of his time here. Like many an undergraduate – like indeed myself a decade earlier – he had what might be termed ‘an epiphany’ as soon as he walked through Front Gate. He writes of his sense that this
“wonderful experience would immeasurably change and improve everything that would follow it – and was not something to be taken for granted”.
He remained true to this epiphany in that he proceeded to throw himself into College life. He was not one of those who are blasé and disengaged through college. He entered wholeheartedly into societies, into making friends, into his studies. And it’s a measure of the education he received and of his own generosity of spirit that twenty years after graduating he remembered so well his lecturers and what they imparted to him. Particularly gratifying for any educator, reading his essay, is the credit he gives the university in his formation.
We are, of course, extremely proud of Paschal. We have watched with some awe his meteoric rise in government. Elected to Dail Eireann for Dublin Central in 2011, he was Minister of State within two years, and Minister of Transport in three. His success in getting re-elected in a ‘notoriously difficult constituency’ last year made for one of the memorable scenes of last year’s election. And he now holds one of the most important jobs in the country, Minister for Finance.
And all this has been achieved with a consensus, which crosses party lines, that he is immensely able and deserving, one of the most brilliant, dynamic, hard-working and humane of any of the country’s elected representatives.
We could not fail to be proud of Paschal – to point to him as an example to our students. But what makes us not only proud, but even in a sense, proprietorial, is that he is so definite about the part that the College played in his success. He writes simply that it was studying Politics and Economics here that ‘led to a career in public and political life’. His realisation, as a student, that the ‘nature of political and public institutions is fundamental to the performance and design of an economy’ could stand as an endorsement to everyone to read the book he will be launching this evening.
It’s not only in what he writes and says that the Minister has remained loyal, generous and supportive of Trinity. He has also taken time to support our programmes and initiatives. I think particularly of his support for the Career LEAP programme developed by Trinity’s School of Education, which helps at-risk young adults enhance the skills necessary for developing career identity and work-readiness.
It’s the Minister’s palpable belief in the transformative power of education that makes him such a natural ambassador for Career LEAP and other access programmes.
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It was a great day for Trinity when, earlier this year, we learned that both the new Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance were graduates. This wasn’t simply vulgar satisfaction in having our graduates in “the top jobs”. It’s because Leo and Paschal exemplify this university’s presence now at the heart of Irish public and political life after what might be termed the ‘wilderness years’ of much of the 20th century, when Trinity was isolated for various reasons not of the college’s making, including Archbishop McQuaid’s infamous ban on Catholics attending.
We want our students to feel a stake in the country that educated them and we want them to feel the joy that comes from ‘giving back’ – from using their talents and skills for the greater good – whether that be through politics, the arts, entrepreneurship, health, ecology, education, research or in whatever domain.
No-one can doubt Minister’s Donohoe’s sense of public service. And what is striking is his unaffected zest for the great role he has taken on. He is not bowed down by the cares of office; he is elevated by it.
He ends his essay in Trinity Tales with the memorable words – luck and gratitude, that is what he feels about his time here. I venture to say, as an educator and as the parent of a daughter who is starting in Trinity this year – that a sense of luck and gratitude, as opposed to entitlement or laid-back indifference, will take you very far. To keep our youthful excitement and idealism alive as we progress through life – this brings personal and professional fulfilment and it has an invigorating effect on all whom we encounter.
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It’s now my pleasure to invite the Minister to launch this book, but first, it’s our honour to present to Paschal this gift: a limited edition copy, from 1926, of a First Edition of Gulliver’s Travels.
This is the most widely-read book ever written in Ireland, or by an Irish person anywhere, or by a Trinity graduate. It was a sensation when it was published in 1726 and in almost 300 years it has never not been famous.
This year is the 350th anniversary of Swift’s birth – which we commemorated with a symposium and with an exhibition in the Long Room.
And what makes this gift particularly apt, we feel, is that Swift’s genius was political as well as literary. Who can forget his attacks on the governing of Ireland in A Modest Proposal? Or indeed his satire on the pettiness of party politics in the Lilliputian section of Gulliver’s Travels?
He is certainly one of the most effective satirists who ever lived. Swift was the man who not only wrote, but lived, these words: ‘Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.’
In the memory of this great Dubliner, graduate, and defender of the poor and marginalised, it’s our honour to present this limited edition to our graduate, Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Finance and for Public Expenditure and Reform, in whose achievements we take great pride, and whom we wish continued future success.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Minister Donahue.
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