Political Reporter Ms Adi Roche has launched her presidential election campaign with a pledge to host, in 1999, a "global summit" of peacemakers and humanitarians which would attract leading campaigners and activists.
In a lengthy address in Dublin yesterday at the official start of her campaign, Ms Roche touched on a range of issues - youth, the need to preserve the planet, neutrality and "the struggle for peace in Ireland" - and emphasised that she would conduct a Presidency characterised by compassion, concern and hope.
Immediately upon election, she intends to ask the leading non-governmental children's agencies in Ireland to come together in a commission to advise her on how she could help to carry out "the spirit of the Proclamation and on how I can open the President's house to the children of Ireland".
"It is a big beautiful house - certainly much too big for two people - and there is no reason why hundreds of children throughout Ireland should not grow up with a life-long memory of a visit to Aras an Uachtarain. I intend to offer the facilities for such visits to schools throughout Ireland, just as I intend to visit children in their surroundings," Ms Roche said.
If elected she would use her role as honorary president of the Irish Red Cross to "seek out some of the many great men and women in the world who have dedicated their lives to freedom, justice, peace and humanitarian work".
Her role, she said, would also involve encouraging the highest level of self-esteem in Ireland's young people and, as the youngest President in the State's history, her election would be registered as a vote of confidence in the younger generation.
Outlining plans to organise - with full Government approval - a summit for peacemakers and humanitarians, Ms Roche said the aim of such a gathering would be to highlight the areas in which they work. It would "seek to make a common cause of world suffering" and provide leading campaigners and activists in humanitarian causes with the "space and time to interact with invited Government, European and UN agency representatives".
The purpose of the summit would be to help articulate a vision for humanity and provide a reference point for the building of a world where the human family was nurtured and revitalised, she added. It would also emphasise the important role Ireland has, "and will continue play", as an international peacemaker and an international facilitator for dialogue, reconciliation and meaningful growth.
Meanwhile, the Presidency was an office and every office had walls and windows. The walls of the Presidency were the Constitution which clearly set out the distinction between the representative role of the President and the executive functions of the State.
"Only the people can change the office. Only the people can decide if the walls should be broken down. But the window of the office is the oath the President takes. In this election, I am asking for the chance to do what it says in that oath and no more than that - to dedicate my abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland," Ms Roche said.
While the President could not change economic policy or run foreign affairs, an effective Presidency could help all to raise their sights and be proud of who we are, "to express our confidence as a young and proud country".
She again emphasised her wish to embody the white in the national flag, reaching out and valuing the orange and green traditions on this island.
Addressing those people who had campaigned on specific issues with her, Ms Roche said "we have marched against, and protested against, the arms race, nuclear and conventional".
"We have taken joy in handling the dust of the Berlin Wall and in seeing the useless metal of a disarmed warhead. We have marched from the wild beauty of Carnsore Point to the fences of Greenham Common; from the doors of the Kremlin to the halls of the United Nations. Together we boycotted the fruits of apartheid. We cried for Biko and we sang with Nelson Mandela," she added.
They had also "called for a better way" from Ballyporeen to the coffee fields of Nicaragua, from Windscale to Sellafield, from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl and they had shouted long and often, "close them down".