Irish society should not allow a "business as usual" approach to take hold but should formulate a new set of ethical principles, President Michael D Higgins has said.
Mr Higgins was speaking in Dublin at a event organised by the charity St Vincent de Paul under the auspices of the President of Ireland’s Ethics Initiative.
“The risk, as I see it, is that if we do not tackle the assumptions that have inflicted such deep injuries on our moral imaginations, we will end up going back to ‘business as usual’ - as many of those advocating acquiescent fortitude on ‘the road to recovery’ would like us to do,” he said.
Mr Higgins said there were signs on the housing market and the credit markets that such a return to old ways of doing may already be under way.
“We must not, then, miss this opportunity to seek, together, a new set of principles by which we might live ethically as a society,” he said.
He indicated that he agreed with the statement in the St Vincent de Paul’s pre-budget submission that this was a time of both “risk and opportunity for our country”.
He added: “Now is the right time to kick-start such a discussion”.
