As President of Ireland, may I offer to each and every one of you my warmest greetings and my best wishes for a peaceful and happy Christmas.
On this occasion, as I offer you all what will be the final Christmas message of my terms as Uachtarán na hÉireann, I recall the values that I stressed in my first Christmas Message in 2011.
The ethical values I invoked as project for all of us – building a just and inclusive society that ensures the participation of all of our citizens – are surely as valid today as they were then, retaining a capacity to go to the hearts of Irish people wherever scattered they may be as they celebrate this season.
At Christmas, many families will be welcoming the homecomings of many of our Irish community abroad. But there are those of course who for different reasons are unable to travel home, but whose connection with family and friends remains so strong.
In the same spirit, I think of all those who have moved to live with us and make a new home in Ireland, our new citizens and those who have sought asylum here – those seeking refuge, those searching for a life free from fear and persecution, or who, like so many of our Irish over the generations, simply wish for a better life.
May they, this Christmas season, all feel both welcome and kindness while separated from their own families around the world. Their new home does not require any forgetting of their home cultures or families.
Let us have in our thoughts too those for whom Christmas is a difficult and emotional time of the year, those who are homeless, those who have experienced recent losses, those who are ill or who have loved ones who are having difficulties, and the many others in our society who may be in need of real and practical support.
May I pay a special tribute to those members of our Irish Defence Forces who will be overseas this Christmas and thus separated from their families. In particular those in Lebanon, whose contribution to peace-building and protecting some of the most vulnerable members of our shared global family is an example of Irishness and its values at its best. Their work and their families’ sacrifices that make it possible are moral examples for the entire international community, including the most powerful.
In 2024 we find ourselves in circumstances in which it is not sufficient nor morally acceptable that any passivity, evasion or silence is offered in the face of multiple, interlocking crises across our world – food insecurity, malnutrition and global hunger, the consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss, rising global poverty and deepening inequality, and the domination of preparations for war over peace in the daily discourse.
This Christmas, we are all too aware that far too many of our global family are having inflicted upon them as part of the most horrific circumstances of war, circumstances that less and less respect civilian rights and that force endless displacement.
At the end of this year we think of all those who will be recalling all of these horrific events of recent times – the brutal attacks on civilians, including the taking of hostages, for whom so many families continue to anxiously await word of their safety, and as I speak, so many deaths of the most vulnerable remind us of what was released by way of a response, a response that has transcended all of the boundaries of humanitarian law.
The silence of many of those with influence in the face of gross violations of the human rights of civilians is conferring an impunity on those who are flagrantly inflicting collective punishment on civilians, including starvation which, as I speak, is affecting most of all women and children.
For all of the people in Gaza, now a crucible of suffering for children and their families – 45,000 dead, 17,000 of them children, 11,000 perhaps under the rubble. For those in Ukraine, who have now endured over 1,000 days of war. Or Sudan, where some 25 million people — more than half of the country’s population — are facing acute hunger this year.
Given all of these circumstances, the painful lessons of history and our hopes for the future must surely persuade us to strive, with urgency, for a world where diplomacy triumphs over endless preparation for war, where the pursuit of peace is a shared objective with far greater resonance than is present at the moment in the discourse.
When we might speak of peace in a diverse world, where the safety and dignity of every human being is valued. This is now our best hope and preparation for responsible and sustainable lives together on what is our vulnerable shared planet.
When I addressed the United Nations Summit on the Future of the United Nations in New York in September, I spoke of authenticity, of how our urgent interacting crises require us to recover a lost authenticity between words and actions, to draw on what were our better, promising moments of achieving trust, such as in 2015 when we agreed collectively the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, a shared blueprint for peace and human development in recognising and responding to the consequences of climate change and the promise of sustainable living.
We are challenged however by the fact that our delivery on these Goals has been so much less than what was committed. Today just 17 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals are currently on track. Half of the 17 goals are showing “minimal or moderate progress”, while over a third are either “stalled or regressing”.
How is it, we must ask ourselves as international leaders, that the world produces enough food to feed all of its nearly 8 billion people, yet dangerous levels of acute hunger affected a staggering 282 million people across the world last year?
Ireland supports President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s initiative, the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.
We are also, and it is a matter of concern, living through a pervasive and deepening inequality that scars our world. Never have so many had so little and so few accumulated so much without responsibility.
I reiterate my strong and urgent appeal for us all to support the United Nations so that we may all fulfil our commitments to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The failure to achieve peace, to eliminate acute global poverty, hunger, and the consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss have been accompanied by a return to an arms race, to a world that has rewarded investors in instruments of death rather than promoting sustainability.
What a shameful statistic it is that in 2023 global military expenditure increased by 6.8 percent to $2,443 billion, increasing in all regions, the highest ever recorded. All of this while so many human values cry out for recognition.
When wars and conflicts become accepted and presented as seemingly unending, such as at present, humanity is the loser. War is not the natural condition of humanity and, if it were, it would constitute little less than a species failure for human life.
Now is the time for all of us, for all peoples to speak and urge countries of the world who wish to see a world of peace, a sustainable and more equal world built on the Sustainable Development Goals, to come together, speak out and force the measures that will make these vital goals a global achievement.
As we celebrate this Christmas season, wherever we may be and in whatever circumstances, may it be a time for kindness, understanding, a time of care and appreciation for one another.
Let us all be grateful, in a special way, to all those who work in our hospitals and emergency services, to those attending to the needs of the homeless, the vulnerable and the marginalised, and to all those who so generously give up so much of their Christmas to serve the needs of others.
May I also take this opportunity to thank so many of you who sent many messages of good wishes for the health of Sabina and I earlier this year – your warmth and encouragement was deeply appreciated by us both.
And as we come to the end of 2024, there are many recollections we could share, but one that remains as a shining memory is surely that of our Olympians and Paralympians who represented Ireland with such distinction in Paris last summer.
In my first Christmas Message, in 2011, I said “we are a country of which there is much to be proud; whose possibilities are still to be fully imagined and realised; and whose people I am honoured to serve”.
As I enter this 14th and final year as President of Ireland, it remains the greatest honour and privilege to serve you, the people of Ireland. I look forward immensely to continuing to do so over the coming year.
During my terms in Office, both Sabina and I have experienced and valued the warmth and friendship of people both at home and abroad. We have witnessed the resilience, compassion, creativity, empathy and kindness of Irish people in so many different ways. It is something we so deeply appreciate and we will always cherish.
And so, as we pass the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, let us look to the future with hope, recalling our shared vulnerabilities this Christmas, resolving to forge together a renewed sense of solidarity, drawing inspiration from the enduring message of hope that lies at its heart.
During this Christmas season, may we find an opportunity to deepen our understanding and accept the responsibility of what it means to live together in harmony and to take seriously our responsibilities to each other and to the world we share.
Sabina joins me in wishing all the people of Ireland a joyful Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
Nollaig shona daoibh is beirigí gach beannacht don athbhliain is don todhchaí.