[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[November 30, 1995]
[Pages 1807-1809]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Business Leaders in Belfast
November 30, 1995

    The President. Well, first of all, I want to thank all of you, all 
the panelists and Mr. Thompson and your M.P. for the fine things that 
have been said. And I thank you for quoting the King James Version of 
the Bible. I read all the more modern ones, and sometimes

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they're easier to understand, but they're not nearly as eloquent. So 
King James is still my favorite, too.
    I would like to make just three points very briefly. First, in the 
presence of the Members of Congress who are here, I want to thank them 
for funding the International Fund for Ireland. In the United States, it 
was really a congressional initiative. For many years, the President--
until I became President, no President ever even made a recommendation 
to spend the money because it was thought to be unusual. But I can tell 
you, now, even though this connection was never made before, we fund 
programs through the Agency for International Development around the 
world in countries much poorer than Northern Ireland which are 
essentially trying to do the same things.
    We know now that if you really want to grow jobs in places where 
there's not a lot of capital, you have to set up a mechanism for getting 
capital into entrepreneurial people who may be in one- or two- or three- 
or four- or five-person businesses. And if you do it right, you can 
create an enormous, enormous number of successful businesses and, in so 
doing, create the demand for the products and services that will be 
produced.
    So I think what you are doing here is really an extraordinary thing. 
And I want to thank the Members of Congress who have consistently 
supported the International Fund for Ireland who are here and to say 
that I hope, frankly, that you will become, as we move forward down the 
road to peace--and Senator Mitchell and the others who worked so hard on 
the investment conference over on our side of the ocean--and you enjoy 
more success, I hope you will become a model for a lot of other 
countries as well who are struggling to build a system of free 
enterprise and give their energetic people the kinds of opportunities 
that you have found.
    We see it even in our own country--some places that others had given 
up on, thought, you know, where there would never be any economic 
opportunity there again--the most successful thing that has been done 
even in our own country is starting things like the International Fund 
for Ireland. But it works better here, what you are doing through these 
community groups, than almost any other place that I'm aware of in the 
world.
    And you said it yourself, sir. I think you said you have in this 
consortium 200 companies with 900 employees; that's an average number of 
employees somewhere between 4 and 5. But it you look at the cost--what 
did you say--13\1/2\ million pounds--I think I can still do exchange 
rates, even though I've been--Presidents are disabled from all practical 
things, you know. [Laughter] They don't get to buy food or drive cars or 
exchange money, but that's pretty low cost per job creation. And so I 
think that's very, very important. And I applaud all of you for what 
you're doing.
    The second point I want to make is that the cease-fire, I'm 
convinced, made possible a lot of this growth. And some of you have said 
that. And you talked about how it's also changing the whole image of 
Northern Ireland. One of the things that I hope will come out of my trip 
here today is that people who have never been here will see the country 
in a different light. You know, we owe that to the media. But people all 
over the world will be seeing this trip tonight, and they will see your 
whole country in a different light, they will see people like you. They 
will see you on television; they will say, ``Those are the kind of 
people I wouldn't mind being involved with''. And I think that will 
help. But it's a real argument for continuing the peace.
    And the third thing I would say is that--you might want to ask 
Senator Mitchell to comment on this--is the conference we had, the 
Washington conference last May. I think it's important to do more things 
like that, not just in the United States but elsewhere, so that people 
are aware, in a tangible way, of the grassroots, not only the grassroots 
commitment to peace but the extraordinary array of competence, the 
abilities, the ideas, that are coming out of here. Because I think--and 
I think as you do that, you'll become more integrated into the global 
economy in a positive way and it will be more difficult for anyone to 
turn the clock back on you.
    George, would you like----

[At this point, George Mitchell, Special Adviser to the President and 
Secretary of State on Economic Initiatives for Ireland, made brief 
remarks.]

    The President. Let me just say, I want to leave on a little bit 
lighter note. When I read my notes about what all of you do, and I was

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preparing for this and I knew I was bringing all the--the Ambassador for 
the United States to Great Britain and the British Ambassador to America 
and all these other people and especially all the politicians back 
there, and I saw that Lynn McGregor is the owner of a company called 
Altered Images, and I thought to myself, she could become an overnight 
millionaire in Washington, DC, just by putting up an office. [Laughter] 
We all need to alter our image a little there.
    Thank you very much. Congratulations to all of you. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:54 p.m. at the East Belfast Enterprise 
Park. In his remarks, he referred to Peter Thompson, board chairman, 
East Belfast Enterprise Park.