Sir, - I am a thirty-something raising his family here, who has worked in this country for the past 15 years, both in bad and not-so-bad economic cycles and like many other people I worked quite long and hard hours to maintain, create, develop and sustain employment and business activity in this country. Over the 30-plus years of economic and social development since the late 1960s, Ireland and its people have developed, for better or worse, their own role in world affairs, a business ethos, a sense of place and, more importantly, a sense of identity.
This identity is born out of what we have managed and developed ourselves over that time. We have demonstrated our ability to stand on our own two feet, to create a niche for this country in economic terms and the people of my generation and younger see Ireland, as it is now, as their home, their nation!
I find it annoying, then, to be told to await a united island of Ireland. I do not want that to happen. I can quite easily pursue a federal Europe of States, but I do not want to risk all that I have striven for - my identity, my economic success, my philosophy, my cultural identity - to be watered down by an amalgamation of two different countries, two different cultures. Whatever about this island at the start of the century being one, the Republic of Ireland has, as it has existed over the past 80 years, developed separately.
Time, identity, philosophy, cultural aspects do not stand still. I have obviously been born out my predecessors on this island, but I do not aspire to their goals.
We should rightly stand tall in our achievement and have pride. We have established a New Ireland, not alone but in partnership on a world stage. It is from this stage now that we must work long and hard to maintain, develop and sustain - New Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
David Delaney, Johnstown House, Glasnevin, Dublin 11.