Irish-US collaboration shows the value of working ‘le chéile’
It’s been about a year since the global scale of this COVID-19 pandemic became apparent to citizens around the world, from North Lawndale to North Dublin. Suddenly, together, we were fighting something mysterious and dangerous that would require working together in the labs, working together on protocols, working together on the front lines, governments working together.
When the world emerges from this pandemic, it will be radically changed. Millions of people around the world will be forever marked by the events of the past year. Families have lost loved ones, businesses have closed, workers have lost jobs and communities are forever altered.
We’ve all played a part in the ongoing fight against COVID-19, and the heroes — the front-line workers and the scientists who developed vaccines in record time — are warriors in the greatest sense.
All of this devastation and dislocation cannot be for naught. The experience must yield positive, lasting change to make our infrastructure stronger, our communities more resilient and our society fairer. The longer it takes to enact these changes, the longer the recovery will be and the deeper the economic and social impacts.
One critical learning has been the acknowledgment that we are stronger as one. Working together on treatments, testing protocols, travel and trade advanced the global effort to control the virus and, going forward, it will facilitate economic recovery. We need to look at how and where recovery takes root and actively see that it is equitable and that no community is left behind.
In coming together to control the virus and map the recovery, leaders can apply learnings to achieve positive momentum on long-term global issues like joblessness, wage inequality, infrastructure and clean energy.
The Irish know about coming together. Our global diaspora is bound by close cultural, regional and family ties and whereas our Irish American, Irish Canadian communities in North America may be an ocean away, they are among the most active and engaged within our community. These bonds, lines of communication, willingness to listen and openness to trade are critical to global economic revival.
Irish people hold our bond with North America in a special place; we celebrate our shared heritage and are inspired by the accomplishments of the Irish diaspora. Today, we need look no further than the White House (incidentally, designed by an Irishman and modeled on the Irish house of parliament) to see how the diaspora is driving positive change.
When President Joe Biden’s ancestors came to the United States from County Mayo many years ago, they encountered challenges very different from those we face today and yet they addressed their challenges in the same way we address ours today — with innovation, industry, compassion and generosity. We look forward to working with President Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and leaders in North America to provide our communities with meaningful progress.
Our joint communities already have made considerable progress by working together in the pursuit of recovery. I am inspired and encouraged by how Irish firms worked with North American partners to develop technologies, protocols and programs to address the pandemic and aid recovery.
Ireland is fifth in the world for global exports of COVID-19 solutions and sixth in the global market of countries responding best in terms of innovation to the pandemic. Much of this progress has been in lockstep with North American partners and in service of North American communities.
We must build upon relationships forged during the pandemic, strengthen the commercial ties and capitalize on the transformative business and technology shifts initiated or accelerated by the pandemic. Now-ubiquitous digital platforms are transforming retail and dining; the cloud is enabling work-from-home and work-from-anywhere. Medtech, telehealth, biotech and pharmaceuticals are innovating, improving and deploying at breakneck speed to get ahead of the virus and will have changed our forever for the better.
Ideas are crossing borders as the world comes together. Likewise, investment needs to follow the ideas, attach to talent, cross borders and break through barriers. Ireland’s foreign direct investment into the United States is valued at $225.5 billion and today over 110,000 people are employed by Irish companies in the United States. International trade facilitates broadened prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic but also advances empathy, understanding and harmony. I firmly believe that it serves as an example for the world to follow.
Today, Irish firms are working with American firms in Chicago to advance their respective and shared business objectives. These Chicago-area and Irish firms are growing, adding jobs and strengthening their communities. As they continue to grow and achieve, these firms are building (for now) digital bonds with Irish neighborhoods like Portobello and Carrigtwohill and, in their own way, are making the world a smaller, more agile, more resilient and more empathetic place.
Our governments must apply the learnings of the entrepreneur and the manager to professionally manage institutions, from local school boards to national governments.
As we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year, we commemorate the strengthening of relationships between the United States, Canada and Ireland, the commitment to working le chéile — together — and the accomplishments that result from doing so.