The second term: The President, Mrs McAleese, has promised to support the work of voluntary community groups during her next seven-year term of office. Mark Hennessy reports.
"I think the important thing for any president is to help in the building up of community, to be an encourager, a facilitator, a congratulater," she said.
The President was speaking after she was deemed elected to the office again, following the failure of any other candidate to get sufficient nominations.
The "army of volunteers" in the community were "really the shoulders that our country stands on in many, many ways", she said.
"They are a huge army. Millions of them who don't look for thanks, don't look for notice, don't look for any reward or attention but who see problems and issues.
"They get a group together, with no money at all, they plug into whatever grants are available, they try to draw in the partnership and they get on with the work," she went on.
"They help in a hundred, no, a million, different ways in our community. . . I see my role very, very strongly to encourage them, to congratulate them, to affirm them.
"Believe it or not, it is a very powerful tool. I have been told it time and time again in these last seven years by thousands of people working in the community how important it is that at the highest - so-called - level in the land someone comes and says to them, 'Thank you, well done, you are doing a brilliant job', and to encourage and champion them.
"I can't lobby for funds, I don't have a government department to give funds. That is not my role. I am not supposed to be an opposition, but there is an important role for a president."
Describing her role as "a nurturer of community", the President said thousands helped even though they were busy in their own lives. "Look at the work the GAA does, it is extraordinary. It allows us to have an extraordinary outpouring of goodness and generosity.
"Wherever there is a problem you will find a community group somewhere who have taken the responsibility, who haven't waited for somebody else to come. They have taken a role on themselves," she said.
Asked what she would like to be remembered for once her time in office is finally over, she said: "To be honest, I am not in this for photo-opportunities, or for the creation of great memories about me. A lot of the work that we have done we have done very, very quietly away from the public gaze."
However, "I hope at the end people will think I helped to nudge forward all those things that are decent and good."