Bill Clinton: “Mr. Speaker Comhaile, you appear to be someone who can be trusted with the budget. [Laughter] Such are the vagaries of…”

“Mr. Speaker Comhaile, you appear to be someone who can be trusted with the budget. [Laughter] Such are the vagaries of faith which confront us all. [Laughter] To the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, members of the Dail and the Seanad, head of the Senate. I'm honored to be joined here, as all of you know, by my wife, members of our Cabinet, and Members of the United States Congress of both parties, the congressional delegation chaired by Congressman Walsh; they are up there. They got an enormous laugh out of the comments of the Comhaile. [Laughter] For different reasons they were laughing. [Laughter] I thank you for the honor of inviting me here, and I am especially pleased to be here at this moment in your history, before the elected representatives of a strong, confident, democratic Ireland, a nation today playing a greater role in world affairs than ever before. We live in a time of immense hope and immense possibility, a time captured, I believe, in the wonderful lines of your poet Seamus Heaney when he talked of the ``longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.'' That is the time in which we live. It's the world's good fortune that Ireland has become a force for fulfilling that hope and re- deeming the possibilities of mankind, a force for good far beyond your numbers. And we are all the better for it. Today I have traveled from the north, where I have seen the difference Ireland's leadership has made for peace there.…”