Letter from Kieran McLoughlin
Vice President & Director of Development
The American Ireland Fund, New York.

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It is a great privilege and a pleasure for me to take up the role of Vice President of The American Ireland Fund. It is a pleasure to be based in the world’s greatest city and a privilege to do so among so many of you who are so generous to Ireland.

This region represents the greatest concentration of goodwill and promise towards Ireland. The Fund has a huge opportunity here to convert that goodwill into practicable assistance for the needy across the Island of Ireland.

But the question is asked: why are we doing this? What is our purpose?
Yes – many in Ireland have done very well but many others have been utterly excluded from the economic advance of recent years. In Ireland today:

• 66,000 children live in poverty
• 3,000 children live by the roadside.
• Ireland has the second highest level of illiteracy in the developed world and the second highest level of inequality in Europe.
• Suicide has increased 6 fold and is now the biggest single killer of young men.

And then there is the running sore of Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement is a tremendous achievement but since its signature…

• Segregation in Northern Ireland has increased; 93% of all public housing is segregated.
• The emphatically named peace walls - built to divide one side from the other have increased in height and length.
• Today only 6% of children in Northern Ireland are educated with a child of another religion.

I look forward to the challenge, knowing that we are supported by such generous, innovative personalities who are committed to bringing positive change to the island of Ireland.