Speech by John Bruton TD, former Taoiseach, at a meeting of the Officer Board of the Meath Constituency Executive of Fine Gael at 9.30 pm on Monday 8th September 2003 in the Ardboyne Hotel, Navan.

"This day 8th September 2003 - is the 70th anniversary of the public launch of the Fine Gael party in 1933 in the Mansion House in Dublin.
"The event took place in exceptionally difficult circumstances.
"WT Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedheal, having put the state on a firm constitutional foundation over 10 years, had lost two general elections in a row. The first was lost narrowly enough, in 1932, and the second, much more decisively in January 1933. In the election, Cumann na nGaedheal had obtained only 30% of the vote, against Fianna Fáil's 49.7%.
"WT Cosgrave's steady qualities had served the country well as it emerged from the violence and lawlessness of the Civil War.
"In the face of enormous difficulty Cosgrave, Kevin O'Higgins, Ernest Blythe and others had established a genuinely democratic state, at a time when democratic states were becoming increasingly rare across Europe. They resisted an Army mutiny which could easily have lead to military rule. They faced down their own supporters to guarantee that appointment to, and promotion within, the civil service would be on merit alone. Again they faced down their own supporters and opponents in maintaining free trade in and out of Ireland, a policy that was to be reversed by Fianna Fail in 1932 with disastrous results.
"But the depression and the passions of the early 1930s seemed to some to demand a more charismatic style than Cosgrave could offer, something provided in abundance by Éamonn de Valera. A merger of all opposition parties seemed to be necessary to put together a strong enough combination to counter de Valera's apparent threats to property and to conventional politics. The plan was that new anti-Fianna Fáil forces, which emerged in 1933, were to be merged with Cumann na nGaedheal to form a new party, Fine Gael.
"The first of the new forces that met in the Mansion House to form Fine Gael was the National Centre Party, led by Frank McDermott and James Dillon, which had obtained 9% of the vote in 1933, and which spoke for farmers, who were being ruined by de Valera's economic policies, and for the remnants of the old Irish Party, under John Redmond, which had won Home Rule peacefully for Ireland in 1914, but which had been eclipsed by the violent passions unleashed by the outbreak of the Great War and the 1916 Rising.
"The other new element in the Mansion House meeting seventy years ago today was the Army Comrades Association. Initially set up as a benevolent association to protect demobilised, ex-Free State soldiers, it quickly developed into an organisation to protect the right of Cumann na nGaedheal speakers to address political meetings, meetings which were being broken up by Republicans emboldened by Fianna Fáil's 1932 election success.
"The new party that came together on 8th September 1993 styled itself The United Ireland Party ? Fine Gael. Its first President was General Eoin O'Duffy, its first parliamentary leader was WT Cosgrave, and its Vice Presidents were Cosgrave, James Dillon and Frank McDermott. It stated its policy to be the 'voluntary' reunion of Ireland, in stark contrast to the policy of coercion of Unionists espoused by Republicans.
"The new Party organised itself with tremendous initial vigour, with meetings, marches and dances all over the country. Like Cumann na nGaedhael before it, Fine Gael employed a large number of professional paid organisers ? up to sixty or more ? to organize the Party throughout the country.
"But de Valera's appeal was too strong and Fine Gael was not to make any real progress until the General Election of 1948.
"In 1948 it entered Government at the head of a five party Coalition. Power transformed Fine Gael's prospects and it enjoyed a big revival in the General Election of 1951, absorbing the votes of smaller parties. "Looking back over the past 70 years, what are the significant achievements of the Fine Gael party? I would pick out the following:
· The defence of freedom of speech in the 1930s. This was no small achievement. The existence of the Blueshirts forced de Valera to rein in the IRA whose activities were breaking up meetings, and destroying foreign goods (including barrels of Bass ? ironically the present Taoiseach's favourite drink!);
· The establishment of the Industrial Development Authority in 1949, and the granting of tax-free status to export companies in 1956. Together these laid the foundation for all the foreign investment we had in Ireland for the following 50 years. Gerard Sweetman of Fine Gael, as much as Seán Lemass, could be said to be the architect of Ireland's economic modernisation;
· The establishment by Liam Cosgrave and Garret FitzGerald of the principle that Irish unity could only be achieved by consent. This principle was consistent with Fine Gael's founding ideals but it was a radical departure from the anti-partitionist rhetoric of de Valera. Without the principle of consent there could have been no Anglo-Irish or Good Friday Agreements;
· Saving the country from bankruptcy in the 1981 to 1989 period ? first by courageous and tough budgetary policies in Government up to 1987, and then in opposition by the unprecedented Tallaght strategy of Alan Dukes which allowed a minority Fianna Fáil government to rein in expenditure and benefit from the sudden fall in international interest rates after 1987. It is important to stress, however, that the so-called 'miracle' of economic recovery in 1987 owed much more to the fall in international interest rates than it did to reductions in other public expenditure by "Mac the Knife" McSharry. In fact there were very few reductions.
"Fine Gael, under James Dillon, was the first party to advocate entry into the European Union. It also played the vital role in reforming the Dáil and in removing from the Constitution the ban on divorce and the irredentist territorial claim on the north.
"In the 1994 ? 1997 period, Fine Gael in Government achieved the highest rate of economic growth ever achieved in the nation's history. It achieved a current budget surplus, something not seen since 1971. It laid the foundation for future prosperity, by initiating the policy of having a 12.5% maximum tax rate on all companies ? a policy that will continue to make Ireland a profitable place to invest. In the same period, Fine Gael adopted a non-sectarian approach to Northern Ireland ensuring that the representatives of all Irish people in Northern Ireland, whatever their religion, allegiance or heritage, would get a fair hearing from the Irish Government.
"During the course of the 20th century, other Parties gradually came to adopt Fine Gael's traditional policies in place of their own. Parties that previously advocated aggressive republicanism, like Fianna Fail, or state socialism, like the Labour Party, adopted policies close to those that Fine Gael had always held to. Imitation is the best possible compliment.
"But as Kevin O'Higgins once said :
'In national affairs, one has to accept that it is not by the water that has already passed that the mill is turned'.
"We, as a Party, have reason to be inspired by our history and proud of it. But it is our ability to anticipate, think through, and solve the emerging problems of the future that is important now. We should not ask ourselves what the Party needs. We should ask ourselves what the country needs, what the people need. Our Party will grow if it looks outwards, contract if it looks inwards.
"In the 21st century, Fine Gael's task is to analyse the new issues which will dominate future politics. Fine Gael's challenge will be to come forward with profoundly considered ideas on:
· making our economy competitive in an ever-changing global setting,
· promoting better relations between people of different races,
· relieving pressures on the quality of life, especially in the housing field and,
· strengthening of the family as a support system for future generations of Irish children."