I am greatly honoured by this Award and by being asked to make this Address at University College Dublin. I know that it is customary on such occasions to profess to being unworthy of the honour bestowed. In this case there is no false humility in my adopting that phrase this evening. There are many here more deserving than I am and I accept the honour more as a representative of generations of graduates than on my own behalf. I hope that my comments too reflect the general opinion of many who, like me, have benefited from our association with this great University.

The inextricable link between University College Dublin and the development not merely of our State, but also our national consciousness, is evident from even the most cursory glance at the list of personalities who have passed through its portals and the influence that they have brought to bear on our society. I shall not recite a litany of them for no matter how long, deserving names would be omitted.

Newman, of course, set the highest ambitions for the antecedent of University College Dublin when on the 3rd November 1854 the university first opened its doors. I find it appealing that the first name enrolled was Daniel O’Connell, the grandson of the greatest Irishman of all. The liberal and internationalist ethos was temporarily confirmed too by the fact that, in Newman’s house, which was one of three, there were 8 students of which only two were Irish. I would like to say that Newman set a tone for a liberal education that was to endure unbroken to the present time but this would be taking some liberty with the truth. UCD has had its ups and downs in this and in other respects. In this too it reflected our society in its various phases as much as it led it.

On a personal level of course we all have our memories. Mine, of times in Earlsfort Terrace are of virtually unqualified happiness. My lecturers included Garret Fitzgerald and John Maurice Kelly. Interesting though they undoubtedly were I doubt if the attendance at their lectures would have been other than sparse had they adopted the approach of another famous early teacher at the College, John Manley Hopkins SJ. He undertook at the beginning of the year not to teach anything that would be on the examination papers so that students could attend who loved learning for its own sake. Even in those days, Donal McCartney tells us in his history of UCD it was said that his lectures were attended by some with less noble intentions. These were students who wanted to know what could be safely omitted from their pre-examination preparation. Reference to Hopkins allows me to mention the vital role played too by the Jesuits in the early days of the creation of the University College Dublin.

The impact of University College Dublin on Ireland has, of course, been both profound and overwhelmingly positive. It has forged its own identity and character and today stands as a university in its own right. The challenge, today, particularly for its esteemed new President is to sustain and develop its character and impact as a vital element in a new Ireland in a dramatically changing world. In this regard we start with some advantage in the deserved reputation of the youth of Ireland. Let me say something about that subject:

For a very long time the Irish were prone to demonstrate both a lack of self confidence and, paradoxically, a sense of moral superiority over many others. Perhaps this was the inevitable concomitant of centuries of perceived defeat and disadvantage combined with a certain sense of our righteousness as a people. This was a peculiarly Irish variety of a continental European disease that has existed for over two centuries which has been described as romantic pessimism. There, wars and the loss of empires were no doubt causative factors. This attitude is encapsulated in part in the quotation from a French philosopher who wrote that to be a prophet it is necessary to be a pessimist. Indeed this university and its products were probably not immune to this syndrome. More generally we Irish lacked self confidence in intellectual terms perhaps in part resulting from our absence from philosophical traditions and debates over the centuries such as those surrounding the Enlightenment. In addition, we have a tendency to both revile and revel in our heritage. In a sense we view ourselves as being slightly better than others whilst at the same time often corrosively attacking what we are. Whilst self criticism and sceptical enquiry is often a necessary antidote to hubris and complacency, in some quarters it has gone too far. Some seem to be unable to applaud our success and prefer to indulge a notable and potentially debilitating cynicism.

Newman had an interesting and different vision. A hundred and fifty years ago he wrote of us as ‘a people who had a long night and will have an inevitable day”. He wrote too of a future “prosperous and hopeful land” being a “road of passage and union between two hemispheres”. This was the forecast of an Englishman but in its essence it was a vision shared by a great Irishman and graduate of, and teacher in this university, Tom Kettle. He, of course, an Irish nationalist died in the battle of the Somme in September 1916 but in 1910 he referred to ‘an Ireland unique in Europe wrought out of the ideal of the “civilisation state” as contrasted with the brute-force state’. Hopefully we have now laid our own demons to rest in this context of brute force and can move forward with our task, and this university’s task, of creating a “civilisation state”.

There are some positive signs. As I suggested earlier it seems to me to be no exaggeration to say that our young have to some extent broken out of the paradigm of cynicism I have cited. One of their most evident qualities is a confidence and positivism that belies much of the negativism that has been around. This is remarkable and deserves to be nurtured. Real credit for this must go not merely to their families but also to their schools and universities and this one in particular. It seems difficult to make a strong case that a clear superiority in their education brought them to this place. Equally, however, it can be asserted that there has been no inferiority in that education inhibiting them in seeking a place in the world. Perhaps their self confidence is a temporary phenomenon born out of recent and startling economic successes or a sense of the esteem in which Ireland is held. This may not always have been deserved but has somehow been achieved. Wherever one goes today being Irish is a badge of honour. Doors are opened with a smile. Perhaps we are inheritors of a regard that comes to some extent from selfless service by our missionaries and, more recently NGOs too, in various parts of the world of which we should be legitimately very proud. We should recognise that this esteem will continue only if we sustain the best of our values as well as developing our talents. This is where this university must continue to engage not merely in fostering talents in natural sciences and the capacity to contribute to economic growth that comes from this but it must persist too in being a university that cares about the disciplines that focus on values and, in particular, humanities and philosophy. These will help to anchor us to the values that we proclaim.

Let me refer now to some specific aspects of the future. The recently published OECD report on tertiary education makes a real contribution to debate on the development of our universities. Deservedly it pays tribute to the growth in the numbers receiving third level education here. In 1965 Ireland had an age participation rate at third level of 11%. In 2003 it was 57%. Of course statistics like these do not address the issue of the quality of that education but they are impressive by any standards. Furthermore what I can assert is that the impression given by our young, and the statistics of their recruitment at least in the world of business and the professions bear this out, is that they are highly valued.

Much remains to be done and others are not static either. We now live in a world that has embarked upon a process of remarkable and rapid integration and increasing competition. The rapidity of this change, and the urgency of response demanded by it, need emphasis. We should of course both endorse and participate in it. For me, globalisation is about more than economic success. It is a moral issue too relating to equality of opportunity – something we Irish should have some feeling for. This will be challenged both regionally in Europe, and indeed more generally, by the familiar band of isolationists and protectionists to be found everywhere. We must know better and do more. The vocation of being a “civilisation state” of the twenty-first century will be realisable only if we recognise that there is very much more that we need to do. Some of the challenges are simple and relate to education. For example, today 11% of our students in University College Dublin are foreign. Many of these are Erasmus students. We need a far greater percentage from around the world studying here not merely as testimony to the quality of what we provide but to continue the process of opening our minds. More substantively clearly we must do much more to foster the growth of post graduate numbers. In a sense this is a defining issue in a great university and it is where for example, Harvard, which surely is the greatest university of all today really scores (with the help, it must be said, of nearly $30bn in an endowment fund). As the OECD report confirms we have not succeeded in this area. This is particularly true in science. The number of PhD students per 1000 head of population in Ireland aged 25-29 is at 1.8%, much lower than the EU average of 2.9%. (In Finland and Sweden it is nearly 6%). Of course this is, in significant measure, a question of resources but that is not all. We have to change a mindset that sometimes focuses on broad numbers to the exclusion of promoting the exceptions. The exceptions, keeping them at home and fostering their abilities, will be central for our future.

On the matter of resources let it be said that the state’s relative contribution to education here is not bad. Of course it could be better but maybe it is time for us to seek courageously to look again at the vexed issue of free third level education for all to provide additional and necessary funds. Of course the truly needy should be supported but our political system, having done much in some areas like funding research, should now address the fundamental issue. For example, Australia, China and others have found a way to do so through loans. Student loans and some differentiation based on ability to pay must be used to provide further badly needed resources for our universities in their search to be top of class in comparative terms. We are not there at the moment. The universities too have a role in taking on hard issues relating inter alia to performance and its relationship to security of tenure. In this day and age teaching at all levels has to be linked to performance value and to duck this issue is damaging to our young. On the other hand so too is ducking the issue of paying our professors at the rates required and attract and retain the best of them. And issues too like collaboration between institutions of higher learning will also have to be addressed. We need a mechanism to logically allocate research funding now generously available. As Garret FitzGerald has pointed out, on the basis of relative size Ireland can legitimately claim one research university where the Americans have eighty. This means division of tasks on merit has to be undertaken if we are to be effective. This is not of course to suggest that our universities should not compete with each other just as they increasingly will be called upon to compete with universities elsewhere and particularly, for undergraduates with the UK universities.

Therefore our future in these and other respects is in our hands. To a not insignificant respect, that future depends on a step change in our universities that cannot be delayed. Time is very short. We have seen how rapid can be a climb up at least one ladder of relative economic success. A fall can take place just as quickly.

In conclusion let me quote Cardinal Newman again. He wrote that “I dimly see in the future the capital of a prosperous and hopeful land in a beautiful bay and near a romantic region and in it I see a flourishing university which for a while had to struggle with fortune but which when its founders and servants were dead and gone, had successes far exceeding their anxieties.” I think he would be proud today of what he could see. I certainly am. The successes of this great university far exceed the anxieties that it may still harbour. Here in these magnificent grounds we can give credit for what has already been done whilst aspiring to do more. It is appropriate to finally say “ad astra” – a worthy aspiration for a fine institution.

This is the text of a speech delivered by Peter Sutherland at a University College Dublin Foundation Day dinner