To all the People of Ireland, we the pupils of Ringaskiddy Lower Harbour N.S gather here today to remember our ancestors and everyone who helped make Ireland a Republic. We remember the many sacrifices that have been made to improve Ireland and which have helped to make it the country it is today. We call on the current generation of people, young and old to continue to promote equality, justice and peace in our country.

We believe that all children are entitled to a free education. We hope that children will have more support to stay in school until they are 18 and have the opportunity to attend third level education regardless of their ability to pay for it.

We proclaim that every person in Ireland no matter what race or creed, should be treated with dignity and have equal opportunity in education, hospital care, mental health support, security, recreation facilities, childcare and care for the elderly. Everyone in this country has the right to feel safe and all new citizens should feel welcome.

We declare the important right to an adequate health service for all citizens. We strive for a society free of waiting lists, hospital trollies and under resourced staff. We aim to provide a reliable health service, where the most vulnerable members of our society can be cared for and treated with the respect they deserve.

We also need to focus more on mental wellbeing through a range of activities and programmes such as wellness and mindfulness to ensure that everyone in our society can be resilient and have the skills to live a full life despite the difficulties we may encounter.

In Ireland today, homelessness is proving to be a major problem. Some people don’t have enough money to pay rent and they are forced to a life of blankets on the streets. For future years we hope that more houses will be available or built so homeless people have somewhere to live.  Homeless and poor people should not go hungry every day and should have a warm, comfy, safe house to live in.

We acknowledge that global warming and the greenhouse effect are damaging our future. We wish to strive to reduce harmful effects of progress and we promise that we will act quickly to help reduce global warming and deal fairly with climate change. We will continue to reduce, reuse, recycle and we think there should be more bins in public places to stop people littering and to remind everyone to keep Ireland clean.                               

We want more jobs to be available so when we grow up we will be able to stay in Ireland and not have to leave our families and emigrate.

Finally, we are proud of our Irish culture and traditions. We must continue to keep our native language, songs, dances, stories and customs alive. We are privileged to have unique and rich traditions and we must continue to pass our traditions onto future generations. Unfortunately, in certain parts of Ireland the Irish language is slowly fading away before our eyes. If we don’t want the language to disappear we have to make an effort to start speaking it. Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.

Thank you for listening and here’s to a better future for Ireland.

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