President has youth on his side

MICHAEL D Higgins will now serve his second term as President with a resounding mandate.

In his inauguration, the Head of State called on our youth to lift up this great country.

He said they rejected cynicism “to make the possibility of hope a reality”.

Mr Higgins also criticism of austerity saying the State’s interaction with its people is “so much more than negotiation around the allocation of scarce resources”.

He spoke of the importance of maintaining good relations with the UK.

One key area he identified was the commemoration of our revolutionary years and of the foundation of the Irish State in 1922.

Mr Higgins warned we must not re-open old wounds and criticised false amnesia.

As we recalled the thousands of the young Irishmen who died in World War One he also referenced our struggle for independence.

Those men fought for various reasons – the self determination of small nations and, for a minority, in support of the British Empire.

We have grown up as a country, moving forward in leaps and bounds from the strangle hold of our difficult past.

Clearly Mr Higgins realises the great impact of youth to seize the future.

They are as important now in peace time as those young people who fought to end the tyranny of empires and give us our freedom.