Leader's address: Edited version
I'm pleased to be here with you tonight in Killarney and to speak again to Fianna Fáil and to the Irish people. Our gathering is a reminder, not just of the great distance we have come since 1997, but of the great challenges today as we chart a positive course to the future, towards an Ireland of unity, prosperity and community.
Fianna Fáil has always challenged the status quo, so I have come before you tonight to talk about how we can do more, achieve more and build more on the success of the past eight years. The Irish people are proud of their achievements and rightly so. By working together, we have turned Ireland around.
Our record
Today Ireland has the lowest level of unemployment in the European Union - half the EU average and half what it was only eight years ago.
While other nations have watched their debt spiral, we halved ours.
And having the second lowest overall tax burden in the EU has been good for business, good for consumers and good for us all.
Every year since 1997 workers on low incomes have been removed from the tax net. Now over a third of lower wage earners pay no income taxes, all this while take-home pay has risen dramatically.
In 1997 Ireland had no minimum wage. Today we have the second highest in Europe.
In eight years we have doubled the social welfare budget, trebled child benefit and raised pensions by 80 per cent.
And during that time 7,000 more nurses, 6,000 more teachers and over 5,000 more special-needs assistants have started working in our schools and hospitals. Delegates, there are over 1,400 more gardaí today and 1,800 more men and women are being recruited. These front- line public servants are delivering better services, building stronger communities and securing our prosperity for the future.
Political leadership
These historic achievements happen by choice and not by chance. Sound policies, real leadership and a Government committed to change and reform harnessed to the energy, the talents and the hard work of our people have brought Ireland into an era of sustained economic growth. And as long as Fianna Fáil has the responsibility of government, we will not risk the people's prosperity with uncosted plans, contradictory policies and empty promises.
Reform
To achieve our potential, to deliver the best for the Irish people, continuing reform in the public service is urgent and essential.
People dealing with our social welfare system, the Revenue Commissioners or the new system of direct payments for farm families, all know the value of change and improved delivery.
Fianna Fáil believes in the importance, the integrity and the value of the Irish public service.
The Government is delivering on its commitment to fair play. Benchmarking is modernising pay bargaining. It is getting rid of old-style and wasteful internal relativity claims.
But we are equally determined to get good value for this investment. We cannot continue into the 21st century with structures and procedures that are old-fashioned and out of date. We need modern financial and project management systems that deliver value for money. Above all, we need a flexible public service, delivering change for a changing Ireland.
For that reason, we will enter partnership negotiations with the public service unions with a clear agenda for change and reform. Public service unions have a job to do in defending their members. But this Government is no penny-pinching exploiter of a vulnerable workforce. We have no race to the bottom. We have no desire to depress the living standards or cheapen the working conditions of 350,000 public servants. We want the best for them provided they deliver the best for society.
I stand for social partnership, not for social privilege. But I also want that partnership to be real and sustainable. I want a society where we share the burdens and share the rewards as well.
Health
Health care is a concern in every community. It is a sign of a caring society. Everyone wants the best for their family, for their elderly parents, for their children.
As I travel across this country, it is clear, very clear that in many accident and emergency units, we have not yet got it right.
The problems in A&E have many causes. It is the bottleneck that we have to break through.
Delegates, we are taking every action possible to address the root causes of the problems and delays. We are helping people out of hospitals into a caring setting. We are organising tests better and we are providing more GP services out of hours.
We are also making sure that hospitals are regularly checked for hygiene and the reports will be published.
We are determined to address the issues and to sort the problems in A&E.
But our health service is a story of achievement as well as challenge.
New treatments are being developed and delivered. Last year 280,000 more people were treated than in 1997. We have top-class people caring for patients day in, day out. Let's not do them down. Let's not do ourselves down.
When we came into office, three out of four people needing heart operations were waiting more than a year. Now, most patients are treated within a few months.
We are making significant progress in the fight against cancer: 109 additional top-class consultants are now treating cancer patients. Thankfully, survival rates are up and we want this trend to continue.
Before Fianna Fáil came into government in 1997, there was no screening programme on breast cancer for women. We started the service and we guarantee we will complete it for women in every region throughout our country.
On radiotherapy, the previous government left no national plan to offer this essential service to people in every region.
Our plan will ensure that patients come first and that patients will get the cancer treatment they need without long and tiring journeys.
Now the National Treatment Purchase Fund makes sure people are offered appointments for treatment. Waiting lists are down. Public patients are treated as equals, whatever hospital they go to. Over 36,000 people have been helped get treatment. It has not cost them a cent.
We are putting in more hospital beds too. At the end of this year we will have 900 more beds than in 2001, right across the country.
We are also making it easier to get a medical card. Mary Harney and Brian Cowen have raised the means test by 29 per cent in one year.
It also now takes account of mortgage, rent, childcare and travel costs.
With the new doctor visit cards, many thousands more people on modest incomes will be able visit their doctor free and bring their children as often as they need to.
And Fianna Fáil continues to look after our older people. Since 2001, we have provided medical cards for everyone over 70.
But new resources must be matched by radical reform and full participation by all the partners in the health service.
Transport
In eight years major progress has been made on overhauling our transport networks. Over 550 kilometres of new, high- quality roads, a complete renewal of the main-line rail network, a doubling of Dart capacity, 1,500 new buses, not to mention the huge success that is Luas. That is what has been achieved and now there is more to come.
In the coming weeks we will be announcing the largest transport investment package in the history of this State. A truly transformational programme, our 10-year investment framework will provide the resources, will detail the projects and will set out a timetable to overhaul our transport system - roads, new trains, new ways of travelling.
Our plan will give Ireland the transport system it needs and deserves. It will underpin our success over the years ahead, help to drive our economy forward and, most importantly, it will lead to dramatic improvements in the quality of life of every citizen in every community.
Knowledge
We want to encourage more of our third-level graduates to pursue advanced post-graduate study and research at fourth-level - a vibrant fourth-level sector that will produce our future knowledge leaders and underpin a climate of innovation.
This can only be achieved by drawing on the collective strengths of all our higher education institutions.
Creating a world-class education system that will keep Ireland ahead of change and a leading knowledge economy is our goal, the goal we plan to meet.
Ambitious investment plans are making this happen. A new strategic innovation fund for higher education will support our institutions in achieving excellence. Building on the €2.5 billion already invested in research and development, a new and radical investment plan is now being finalised.
We will play to our strengths. We will grow our knowledge economy by creating a new generation of highly-skilled graduates, world leaders, leading this country and realising its potential in 2010, 2020, and beyond.
Peace
Tonight I especially want to talk with you about peace, the cause which is at the heart of Fianna Fáil, the cause that is at the centre and the core of my political life.
Some told me that peace was impossible. Others told me it was only a dream. But I always believed that the dream could come true. Tonight I can tell you it has. The guns are silent and Ireland is at peace.
The peace process is the first instance in Irish history of a revolution without a rebellion. Ireland has walked out from under the shadow of the gunman.
In a little more than a decade, in 2016, Ireland will look back on a full century since the events of the Easter Rising launched the Irish State towards freedom and independence.
It falls on us, as the first generation to enjoy both peace and prosperity, to mark that century point with boldness and with energy, so that one day the dream at the heart of Fianna Fáil, unity by consent, is realised.
Next year, we will celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising and the 80th anniversary of our foundation as Fianna Fáil, the republican party.
This party embodies the very best of the positive republican tradition in this country.
The type of republicanism that is respected by all and can work effectively with everyone.
It is Fianna Fáil today, working with the other parties in the process, that has led to the IRA being persuaded to destroy their arms.
This was a landmark achievement.
It has taken time, patience and perseverance to persuade today's Sinn Féin and IRA to take up the political alternative to violence.
Violence and sectarianism has been deeply damaging to our country and to relations on our island. Instead of unity, it has brought division.
Conclusion
And so as we prepare for the challenges that lie ahead, let us do so with the confidence that the last eight years have given us, and a commitment to the renewed purpose of making Ireland everything it can and must become.
The principles that guide us are clear.
Unity, which is not just at the heart of Fianna Fáil, but in the hearts of the Irish people.
Prosperity, which has been hard won and must be sustained and strengthened in the face of global challenge and our own needs.
Community, a unique Irish sense of place and of belonging, which if properly nourished, will provide a road map to others who wish to emulate a nation which has lifted itself up from its bootstraps and taken a position of leadership in Europe and in the world.
In the last eight years, all is changed, and changed utterly. A new republic is born. A confident country, an ambitious people and an island at peace.
And Fianna Fáil is there, every step of the way. The republican party, working to achieve the ambitions we have set for ourselves, that we have set for Ireland - the ambitions of unity, prosperity and community.
We are a party that lives for the Irish people. We believe in working, we believe in striving, we believe in achieving for Ireland. The very best that Ireland can and will become.
Fianna Fáil believes in Ireland.
Creideann Fianna Fáil in Éireann láidir.