Hope tops agenda as charity book for Calcutta launched

BUSINESSMAN DENIS O’Brien believes Irish people have a tendency to over-egg the good times and “wallow in self-pity” in our current predicament.

Mr O’Brien says Ireland needs to move on from the current crisis, that we are not the only country in the world with a banking crisis, and we are too hard on ourselves.

He cites Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Germany as countries that recorded dramatic economic growth after surviving worse disasters than that being experienced by Ireland.

Mr O'Brien makes the comments in The Big Book of Hope, a collaboration of authors which aims to raise money for the Hope Foundation. It funds 64 projects in Kolkata (Calcutta), including projects involved in education, primary healthcare and child protection.

Mr O’Brien adds that it would delay our recovery if “we succumb to a belief that the future holds scant promise”. Young people were more idealistic than their elders and their idealism should not be “dented or displaced by their more cynical and more senior peers”.

Ireland remains a wealthy country because it has an education system that is generally accessible and a combination of “committed parents and enthusiastic educational staff will see the country return to prosperity”, he writes.

The book comprises fiction and non-fiction works by writers such as Sinéad Moriarty, Joseph O’Connor and Kate Thompson along with politicians and public figures that include Mr O’Brien, Liz McManus, Brian Crowley, Bill Cullen and Senator Ivana Bacik.

Former Beirut hostage and now author Brian Keenan, who attended the launch last night, said people were “wasting too much time talking about what a disaster we have.

“If you really put your mind to it you can talk your way out of it. If we all give up on how we can survive we are nowhere really.”

Organiser Vanessa O’Loughlin, who compiled the book, said the original intention was to give hope to children in India rather than people at home but “if we pass on a little bit to a nation in the doldrums at the moment, it would be a fantastic thing”. Published by Poolbeg, the book will be available in bookshops and online.