President begins visit to Portugal

The economic recovery should extend to every part of a country's population, President Michael D Higgins has said, as he urged "meaningful and socially inclusive" economic growth in the European Union.

On the first day of a state visit to Portugal, Mr Higgins said that while Ireland was "in a better place than a few years ago", many problems remained, including youth unemployment. "It is important that ordinary people have a chance to be sure that they get basic services [ . . . and] that they have a chance to partake in in any progress that is made," he said in Lisbon.

After a meeting with Portuguese president Aníbal Cavaco Silva at the start of a four-day visit, Mr Higgins said: “It is possible to have fiscal prudence but also to have social cohesion.”

Like Ireland, Portugal underwent a three-year troika bailout programme, al though voters elected a left-wing government following political wrangling after anelection in October.

A state dinner in honour of Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina was hosted by Mr Cavaco Silva and his wife Doutora Maria Cavaco Silva last night at Ajuda Palace in the capital. Having accepted the key of Lisbon from the city’s mayor, the President described the deep historic links between Ireland and Portugal, two countries with long maritime traditions.

According to myth, Lisbon was founded by Ulysses, a name “so closely linked with our own capital city, Dublin, through the writings of James Joyce”. “The Irish have been welcomed in Lisbon for centuries,” he said. “During a terrible time in Ireland’s history, when Catholics were prevented from participating in the institutional structures of Irish society, an Irish college was founded here, to educate Irish men, including those preparing for the priesthood.”

For centuries, Ireland had welcomed Portuguese to its shores, Mr Higgins continued, citing the Marrano Jews from Portugal who settled on Ireland's south coast in the late 15th century. These included William Annyas, mayor of Youghal in 1555, the first Jew to hold public office in Ireland.