 Ddiogel, ei wneud os ydych chi'n gwybod y byddai. Mae'n rhoi'r ffordd i'r Gwyl Gwyl Gwyl Seir, a'r bwysigol i'r Brynddon Halligan er間fyd, mae'n mynd i ffantastig ymgyrch. Yn ystod o'r amser, a'r ddiwrdd yn ysgrifennu i ddau ffyrdd ac yn ystod yr acaddurod yn ddechrau a'r ddau i'r atweithio mewn gwirionedd a'u meddwl i'r ganddach, ac yn ystod o'r cwmpeinir. The Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me naturally to be invited to say a few words at this very special event, the inaugural Dr. Gareth Fitzgerald lecture here at the Institute, and I am particularly pleased to see Gareth's family here. It is really wonderful and I think John, thank you for your very interesting and light words, which I think we have all very much enjoyed. I'm particularly pleased, of course, that we reflect here on the, I suppose, the evolution of Ireland's approach to Europe and also a little bit on the future shape of our union on Europe Day appropriately enough, 40 years after Ireland acceded to the community and doing this while we remember a truly great and inspiring European. A great deal has already been said by Brendan about the multitude of talents that Dr Fitzgerald possessed and deployed indeed throughout his long and his illustrious career and indeed long into his formal retirement, which is really, I suppose, the stage at which I came to know him campaigning on all of the multiple treaties over the last number of years. But I am keen to just add a few of my own words before saying a few words about how this ties in with our work today in navigating what is now our seventh presidency of the Council of the European Union and particularly as we enter into our fifth decade of membership of the union. Of course, as well as sharing a political party with Dr Fitzgerald, I also have the singular honour of following him in representing the constituency of Dublin Southeast in Lolaire and on behalf of our great party. Unfortunately, somebody in their wisdom or otherwise has decided to change the name of the constituency, but I think for many of us in this room it will always be Dublin Southeast and that's how we will continue to refer to it. But as we've heard here this evening, Dr Fitzgerald was so much more than simply being a fine public representative, which of course is an honourable calling in itself, but he was a genuine and true leader in the real sense of the world. He was a political leader, especially as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the 1970s and of course as he shook twice during the 80s by any measure a very, very tough decade to be in charge. Perhaps his longest shadow is cast, however, by his belief in ideas, his belief in big ideas, in the power of ideas to move, to motivate and to get things done and in no sphere was this more evident than when it came to Europe. I think we all fondly remember Garrett's extraordinary comfort with detail, with theory and indeed with the minutia of an argument. He was always attributed with the phrase, I'm not sure how accurate it is, but he was always accredited to him. That's all fine in practice, but how will it work in theory? But his attachment to detail, I suppose, informed his vision of Europe and indeed of Ireland's place in Europe. As a student, as a dull deputy and more recently as a minister, Garrett's vision of Europe and his vision for Europe has been nothing less than inspirational to me. He had an abiding belief in the European project, not just, I think it's important particularly given the debate across the water with our nearest neighbour at the moment. He believed in the European project, which was not just an economic project, it was also a deeply political and social project as a structure that could bring the European continent together by healing the wounds of the past while building a common future where all are stronger, big and small, and everybody is strengthened by a strengthened union, where narrow national interests, while of course existing, do not blind us to a sense of common and collective good. For Garrett, such a sense was not viewed naively, I think it's important to say, instead he made a very clear and clever calculation, as Brendan has said, and I believe he did so correctly, that the European Union is a great deal more than the sum of its parts, literally that we are stronger together. And so Garrett was not wide-eyed about European integration, but he had a vision, he had foresight to see that it made real sense for this country and indeed for our European neighbours. He was a firm believer in and he was an advocate for supranationalism at a time when few perhaps fully understood the concept and understood how we could stand to benefit from it. Through the Union's foundational supranational structures, Garrett was convinced that Ireland and other small member states would fare best. And as he said himself, such an arrangement provided a structure within which the larger countries could be constrained from exercising their sovereignty at the expense of smaller countries. To this end, he was a firm believer in the European institutions and especially in the pivotal role of the Commission at the Centre. And that view is shared still today, I think, by everybody in the Irish system and indeed in the system of most of the small member states across the Union. He was a hugely enthusiastic advocate for the community approach. He worked hard to move away from the use of the veto despite the threat of the use of the veto at that crucial point on the milk quotas. And he saw that the veto had effectively become a tool of the larger member states who could use it or indeed abuse it at little cost to themselves, seeking to thwart Commission initiatives. And the cost of using the veto for a smaller state by contrast was of course significant and therefore effectively out of reach. So he worked hard to move beyond the use of the veto to a much more consensus-based approach, one that was founded in a belief in the strong core institutions and particularly the Commission. I suppose it's timely that we gather now during Ireland's presidency, our seventh presidency. While the Union or the community as it was then that Garrett presided over during our first presidency in 1975 and of course our third presidency in 1984 was a much smaller gathering of just nine and then ten member states respectively. The value which he placed as has been really well illustrated by both Brendan and John of course and the value that he placed on personal contacts with his colleagues and the building of an effective patchwork of alliances on all sorts of issues right across the Union or the community as it was. That is an approach which I think it's fair to say has very much stood the test of time. And since coming into office and I suppose with a very firm eye on our presidency, I've made it my business along with all of my colleagues in government to get out and to meet as many of our colleagues as we could in all of the capitals across the Union. And this has been appreciated. The investment of time in that type of personal contact, in that type of diplomacy pays off as we try to broker compromise and as we try to pursue our common agenda which is of course so much focused on stability, on growth and on job creation as it must be at this point in time. I think it is a testament to the prescience of the man that all the way back in 1975 Garrett was already envisioning the need for an economic and monetary union and the desirability of Ireland's full engagement with such an EMU. And while of course we've had to wait some time for EMU to become a reality, we now have 17 member states and hopefully soon to be 18 sharing a common currency and he was one of the few who genuinely had a vision for that dream becoming a reality. Of course the economic and the financial crisis of recent years has brought about an appreciation that our economic and monetary union needs to be strengthened, it needs to be properly grounded and that is what we are doing by building on the various elements of banking union. Presidency of course we have given top priority to advancing banking union. We've already had some notable successes I'm pleased to say including reaching agreement on the single supervisory mechanism. I don't propose to bore you with all of the details. In fact many of you were at my midterm review in the institute just a few short weeks ago so I won't go through it again. But suffice it to say that we are making major strides in the direction of completing EMU and I think in fact I'm fairly confident that Garrett would very much approve of what we are trying to do on behalf of the Irish presidency. Before I conclude I would just like to say on a personal note you know I have to have to say I am a child of the 1980s just about by the skin of my teeth probably one of in fact I'm certainly one of the few in Lesterhouse and as a child of the 1980s, Garrett Fitzgerald had a profound impact on me as a young child growing up in Ireland in the 80s and indeed the 90s and my career. You know I grew up in an Ireland where the political scene was defined by the sort of the contrast between so called Garrett the good and Charlie the well I won't complete it. And that spurred my interest in political life spurred my belief it inspired my belief in politics and in the craft of politics as an essentially noble profession one which must be and should be and was in Garrett's case driven by honesty, by integrity and by big ideas through intellectual rigor and a genuine thought process and engagement and I just have one I recall one incident I met Garrett I was fortunate to meet him on many occasions after I became active in youth politics as I said through different treaties and treaty campaigns and so on but a couple of years ago I spoke at a famous summer school in Donegal where I gave a lecture about political life, the need to reform politics, integrity, the need to change our political culture in this country, the need to leave behind the sort of stroke politics, cutior politics that we have seen corrode public confidence in political life in this country. And at the end of that Garrett was in the audience and he came up to me and he made a point of saying to me to pursue that conviction and to stick to my guns and not to be cowed by those who would disagree and that I have to say meant so much to me and gave me so much confidence in my beliefs and in my political convictions. He was a brilliant outward looking big picture man. He was an internationalist with absolute intellectual rigor. You didn't have to always agree with him. I'm sure that on many occasions many people in this room did not and nor did he with them but so long as you were prepared to argue the toss and have a genuine debate he very much appreciated all perspectives and had time for everybody. So as a youngish Irish woman and an absolutely committed European he has left a lasting impression on me and his big idea, his greatest legacy in this country is our place at the heart of Europe and we really have a lot to be grateful for and thankful for to Dr Fitzgerald for that. His head and his heart were absolutely committed to the European project for some of our citizens. Perhaps some of the gloss has come off the union with the experience of the last few years of crisis. However, I am very much encouraged that even in the midst of the crisis, less than 12 months ago the Irish people continued to appreciate where their interests lay in endorsing the stability treaty. And I know for sure that Garrett would have been thrilled with that outcome. He may not have been thrilled with the fact that it occurred outside of the European treaties but we can still perhaps get that back on track in due course. We need to reconnect the genius of the European Union to our people so that it is again recognised by all Irish citizens and indeed citizens across the continent as being our union. That I think would be a very fitting tribute to the great European that was Dr Garrett Fitzgerald. Thank you very much.