Ireland needs to redefine the concept of patriotism for the era following the Belfast Agreement and the establishment of the euro, the Fine Gael leader told his party's ardfheis. At the RDS, Dublin, last night, Mr John Bruton said that Fine Gael as a party was relaunching and redefining itself, and the nation now needed to do likewise.
What was needed was a new sense of patriotism, one that united people rather than territory, that was willing to take a lead in Europe, that was based "not on individualism but on shared values for a modern country".
The ardfheis, the party's 70th and the first since late 1996, is expected to attract more than 3,000 delegates - most of them arriving today for a programme which culminates in Mr Bruton's presidential address, to be broadcast live on RTE television at 8 p.m.
The two-day event features the unveiling of a new party logo, and is being seen as a chance to rejuvenate the organisation before June's local and European elections.
It takes place against a background of speculation about an early general election. But even if there were no election this year, the longer gaps between ardfheiseanna make it likely this will the first and last party conference during the life of this Government.
Mr Bruton said, according to a supplied script, that the State was approaching a defining moment when it would have the chance finally to end "the legacy of the Haughey era". It was a time of great opportunity for Fine Gael and for "all the decent people in Irish politics - the vast majority in all parties - to stand up and say: enough is enough".
The people were growing tired of the "daily dose of soap opera" dominating politics, he continued.
"For weeks now the Government has been petrified and terrified as new revelations and disclosures force it into panic responses and justifications. That is no background against which a country can be run."
But a defining moment was on the way. "Will our public affairs be informed and coloured by the legacy of the Haughey era, or will it be defined by a new patriotism? A patriotism flowing from the opportunities presented by post-Good Friday Agreement, post-euro Ireland."
As well as pledging the party to a "new patriotism", Mr Bruton dealt with the problems caused by recent economic success. He said that Dublin, for instance, had been transformed in the past decade but now risked "being choked by the anarchic development that has accompanied its apparent success".
He added: "Chaotic queueing has replaced proper planning in crucial areas of public life - from the taxi-rank to the casualty trolley, from the creche to the drug clinic. We are repeating the worst errors of failed models of urban development elsewhere - public squalor and private wealth."
Among the motions to be debated is one which would give councillors a say in the selection of presidential candidates.
