[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 21 (Monday, May 29, 1995)]
[Pages 901-905]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the White House Conference on Trade and Investment in Ireland

May 25, 1995

    Thank you very much. Secretary Christopher, Secretary Brown, Senator 
Mitchell, Deputy Prime Minister Spring, Sir Patrick Mayhew, Mr. 
Ambassador, ladies and gentlemen, to all of you of Irish, British, and 
American heritage from the business communities of these great nations, 
I thank you for being here. I have looked forward to this day for a long 
time, to having people like you here who see the opportunities for trade 
and in- 

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vestment that come from peace and the opportunities for trade and 
investment to support peace. I'm especially delighted that so many are 
here from Ireland and the United Kingdom. And to all of our friends from 
Northern Ireland, your attendance here shows your dedication to a future 
of cooperation and prosperity, and we're particularly glad to have you.
    Let me say a special word of thanks to George Mitchell for the 
tremendous work he has done in organizing this conference. His devotion 
to the cause of nurturing peace and growth in Northern Ireland and the 
Republic's border counties has played a central part in the progress 
that we celebrate here today. I'm delighted that he will lead another 
mission to Ireland this summer and even more pleased that he's agreed to 
continue his work in overseeing our economic initiatives through the end 
of this year.
    Ireland is lucky to have George Mitchell on its side, even if it has 
to put up with the envy of the United States Senate, the Supreme Court, 
and Major League Baseball. [Laughter] You know, George is Irish and 
Lebanese. Maybe when we succeed in Ireland, if the Secretary of State is 
not finished, he'll volunteer for other duty. [Laughter]
    As all of you know, the United States has a keen interest in a 
stable and democratic and prosperous Europe, but that interest is 
particularly strong when it comes to Ireland. Our strong bonds of 
kinship, culture, and history shared with the peoples of the United 
Kingdom in Ireland are well-known.
    This is a moment of historic opportunity for you and historic 
interest for the United States. For my own part, people ask me from time 
to time why this is a matter of such deep personal interest to me. It 
goes beyond my Irish roots. I wish I could just say that's all there was 
to it. But an important part of our mission at this moment in time as 
Americans is to help reconcile the divisions which keep people apart and 
lead them sometimes to violence both within our own country and around 
the world.
    If you look into the next century, you could thank the good Lord 
that we may--we may--succeed in removing the nuclear threat from the 
children of the 21st century. But we still see these ancient impulses 
that keep people apart based on religious or racial or ethnic 
differences. I tell my fellow Americans all the time that the great 
genius of our country in the next century may be our ability to exalt 
the greatest amount of diversity of any large country in the world. But 
it is still a challenge for us here. You see it all the time. And we can 
think of no greater mission in our quest to reconcile diversity than 
trying to help peace and prosperity succeed in Northern Ireland and in 
Ireland in general.
    This is, as I'm sure you know, an extraordinary gathering of which 
you are a part. Never before have representatives of all the political 
parties in Northern Ireland, officials from the United Kingdom and 
Ireland, and so many business leaders joined to help us to build a 
better tomorrow. The conference shows anew the historic progress that 
has been made toward a just and lasting settlement and toward a peace 
that respects the rights and traditions of both communities.
    In the last few months, thanks to the cease-fire and the momentum of 
the negotiations, a powerful transformation has begun. Peace is closer 
than it's been in a generation. For the first time in decades, children 
can walk to school without worrying. Families that have endured so much 
violence with so much dignity can now enjoy the blessings of days 
without violence and nights without fear. The roads between North and 
South are more open than they have been in 25 years. And citizens of the 
Republic are visiting the North in even greater numbers. In Belfast, the 
army patrols have ended, the body armor and helmets are gone, hundreds 
of troops are now going home.
    These landmark achievements would not have been possible without the 
leadership and courage of Prime Minister Major, Prime Minister Bruton, 
and before him, Prime Minister Reynolds. With the Joint Framework 
Document, they are paving the way for a new and hopeful era of 
reconciliation. All true friends of Ireland are grateful to them and to 
the parties that have risen to their challenge. I salute them, and I 
salute others who work for peace, individuals such as Foreign Minister 
Spring, Sir Patrick Mayhew, and that tireless advocate of peace, our 
friend John Hume.

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    We pay tribute as well to the brave people of Northern Ireland, 
whose courage has brought them to this point. The United States is proud 
to have helped them and all peacemakers, and today I renew my pledge to 
do everything in my power to support their efforts. I know--[applause]--
thank you. I know I speak for all Americans when I say that people who 
take risks for peace, here and anywhere else in the world, will always 
be welcome in the White House, in Washington, and throughout our 
country.
    This momentum must be maintained. The ministerial-level talks 
represent a step of tremendous promise. I hope the parties can soon sit 
down together to discuss the future and their differences. That is the 
best guarantee of a permanent peace.
    But there must be progress as well outside the conference rooms. 
Violence is diminished, but it has not disappeared. I call on all those 
who continue to employ violence to end the punishment beatings and the 
intimidation. And to all who are observing the cease-fire, I appeal to 
you to take the next step and begin to discuss serious decommissioning 
of weapons. Paramilitaries on both sides must get rid of their bombs and 
guns for good. And the specter of violence that has haunted Ireland must 
be banished, once and for all.
    It is also time to begin healing the wounds of a generation. Many 
innocents disappeared during ``the troubles.'' Others were banished from 
their homes. Today there are families that have still not had the chance 
to grieve in peace, to visit the graves of their loved ones, to reunite 
after years of separation. It is time to allow families to be whole 
again.
    As everyone knows, peace is more than cease-fires and formal 
agreements. It demands real hope and progress in the hearts of people. 
It demands common striving for the common good. It is time for those who 
have been most affected by the fighting to feel this kind of hope and 
this sense of progress. As Yeats wrote, ``Too long a sacrifice can make 
a stone of the heart.'' There must be a peace dividend in Northern 
Ireland and the border counties so that everyone is convinced that the 
future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy, so that the 
majority that supports peace is strengthened, so that there is no 
slipping back into the violence that frustration breeds.
    That is why this conference is so important. It underscores that all 
sides have an interest in investing in the future of Northern Ireland 
and that all sides will benefit from the peace. Our own experience here 
in America shows what a difference that kind of progress and benefit can 
bring. More than a century ago, our great sage Ralph Waldo Emerson said 
that trade was the principle of liberty, that it made peace and keeps 
peace. That is what we wish for Ireland, and now it is time to realize 
that wish. The end of organized violence makes that possible.
    So I urge American businesses and all others to consider investing 
in Northern Ireland and the border counties. The opportunities are 
excellent. The work force is well-educated and well-motivated. The 
productivity levels are high. The unit labor costs are low. The labor 
relations are good. The infrastructure, the communications, the access 
to the European market are fine. With the prospect of an enduring 
settlement on the horizon, business confidence is rising fast. Experts 
predict investment booms on both sides of the border and an increase in 
tourism in the North that could exceed 100 percent.
    Already, the United States is the number one investor in both 
Northern Ireland and the Republic. American companies employ nearly 10 
percent of all the workers in Northern Ireland's manufacturing sector. 
And Ireland imports almost $3 billion worth of American goods. The firms 
that we have in these markets are increasing their investments, 
strengthening their positions in Europe, building businesses that create 
jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. By doing well, these companies are 
also doing good.
    More investment in Northern Ireland promises to lift the region out 
of the cycle of despair that leads to violence. It will reduce the 
chronic unemployment than runs around 50 percent in some urban areas and 
has deadened the dreams of so many. If growth is accompanied by an end 
to discrimination, by fair and nonsectarian employment practices, and 
encouraging investment in areas in greatest need, then both Catholics 
and Protestants will feel that they have a stake in their society and 
its peaceful future.

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When both communities feel the benefits of peace and see that they are 
distributed fairly, despair will lose its hold, and all will have the 
chance they deserve to fulfill their God-given potential.
    ``Peace,'' Yeats said, ``comes dropping slow.'' The past will not be 
overcome in a day, but the perception of change provides the kindling 
for hope, and the opportunities for positive, powerful, profitable 
change clearly are now present in Northern Ireland.
    As long as I am President, the United States will continue to 
encourage that change. I am proud of all that Secretary Brown has done 
in achieving--on his mission to Ireland last December. I'm proud of the 
many efforts of the Department of Commerce, USAID, USIA, and other 
Government agencies to support reconciliation in Ireland. I am proud of 
the work of the State Department, and I want to say a special word of 
thanks to our Ambassadors in the area, Ambassador Crowe and Ambassador 
Jean Kennedy Smith, for the outstanding work that they have both done. 
Thank you.
    Ours is the first administration ever to include appropriations for 
the International Fund for Ireland. The IFI have lived up to our hopes 
for it. The fund supports over 3,000 economic development projects and 
has created some 23,000 jobs in areas that were recruiting grounds for 
the paramilitaries. It is promoting cooperation across the border and 
between communities.
    The record challenges us to go even further. So we have increased 
our funding request for the IFI to almost $60 million over the next 2 
years. And we are working to build more bridges across the ocean through 
exchange programs for managers, students, agricultural experts, artists, 
and scholars, programs that establish bonds of friendship, while 
transporting ideas and information, benefiting people on both sides of 
the ocean.
    There are some in Washington who would like to cut our funding for 
these and other programs that support peace in Ireland and throughout 
the world. That would be a grave error. The United States has an abiding 
interest in creating peace and the opportunities it brings. We must have 
the resources to foster peace and stand by those who take the hard risks 
for peace. We have seen time and again that our investments in peace, 
whether in the Middle East, southern Africa, Haiti, or Ireland, have 
always yielded great benefits for the American people in growing 
markets, great stability, increased security.
    I hope all those who want to see peace in Northern Ireland will keep 
that in mind. Peace has a price, but it is a small one compared to the 
alternative, and it is a price very much worth paying.
    I'm also glad we've been able to help the cause of peace through 
this conference and other economic initiatives, because Ireland has 
given us so much. The two communities that today are coming together in 
cooperation have each given America a rich legacy. In our Nation, 
Catholic and Protestants have been intertwined, and together they have 
contributed immensely to the greatness of our people and the success of 
America. There is evidence all around us. In places like New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, counties, cities, and towns with names like 
Londonderry, Ulster, and Antrim dot the map. Often these places mark the 
frontier in the 18th century when Ulster Protestants, some of them my 
ancestors, pushed west to build new lives and a new nation. These 
settlers were the forebears of nearly a dozen American Presidents, 
including Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, and Woodrow Wilson.
    Irish Catholics contributed just as much to our country's rise, 
whether in building railroads or institutions. A visiting journalist in 
the last century took the measure of that effort when he said that in 
America you could see water power, steam power, horse power, and Irish 
power. [Laughter] And, he concluded, ``the last works hardest of all.'' 
[Laughter]
    In this half of our century, the names John F. Kennedy, Justice 
William Brennan, Speaker Tip O'Neill only began to tell the story of 
Irish Catholics' contribution to all the branches of American democracy. 
These true traditions, harnessed together in the New World for common 
goals, has been America's great fortune. Time and again, we have seen 
peoples of different backgrounds and ancestries put freedom over 
faction, the goals of the community over the interests of its separate 
parts.

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    Of the gifts we can give to Ireland, this example of people joining 
together for the common good clearly is the greatest. The challenges of 
the coming century demand that we keep in mind the example of those who 
went before us, who built bridges across their differences and found the 
strength to pull together.
    We now face a whole new set of challenges in this new era. The 
global economy, the explosion of information, the advance of technology, 
the growing mobility of people, all these forces are bringing us into a 
more integrated world, more full of possibilities than ever before. The 
next century can be the most exciting time in all human history because 
of the opportunities for human possibilities.
    But we have to recognize that all these forces of integration have a 
darker side, as well. If we do not rise to the challenges they present, 
we become vulnerable to the organized forces of destruction and evil, 
for the modern world requires us to be open in order to take advantage 
of all the forces of integration. And as we become more open, we become 
more vulnerable to those who would hate and those who would destroy.
    As the people of Northern Ireland are showing, we can seize the 
moment. We can turn away from terror. We can turn away from destruction. 
We can turn toward peace and unity and possibility. But to keep this 
process going, to lock in the accomplishments, we must make hope real. 
To grasp the opportunity, we must build stronger businesses and 
communities and families. We must have more and better jobs. We must 
strengthen the prospects of a better tomorrow.
    That is the way to preempt fanaticism. That is the way to close the 
book on old and bloody conflicts. That is the way to give our children 
the future they all deserve. The chance is there. It is here. It is now. 
We have it in our power to make all the difference. Let us do it.
    Thank you, and bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:48 a.m. at the Sheraton Washington 
Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to George Mitchell, Special Adviser 
for Economic Initiatives in Ireland; Deputy Prime Minister Richard 
Spring, Prime Minister John Bruton, and former Prime Minister Albert 
Reynolds of Ireland; Prime Minister John Major and Secretary of State 
for Northern Ireland Sir Patrick Mayhew of the United Kingdom; 
Ambassadors to the U.S. Sir Robin William of Great Britain and Dermot 
Gallagher of Ireland; John Hume, leader, Northern Ireland Social 
Democratic and Labor Party; U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy 
Smith; and U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain William J. Crowe.