PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins has delivered his final St Patrick’s Day speech, criticising the “cruel” withholding of aid to those most vulnerable. 

Higgins said that the world was seeing “borders closing to those who flee in desperation”, as well as “the cruel withholding of aid from those most in need”.

Higgins’ remarks come after US President Donald Trump last month suspended US aid funding, leaving many humanitarian projects in jeopardy. Earlier this week, the Taoiseach said that the Irish government would not be able to make up the shortfall in funding that has led to significant job losses at Irish NGO Concern.

Higgins said relief efforts in “too many places” were feeling “the devastating consequences of a refusal to listen to the voices of the most vulnerable among us”.

“We are listening, in places of influence, to a rhetoric that seeks not to unite, but to separate,” he said.

The President also called for economic policies to be delivered in an”inter-generational moral timescale”.

“I remain convinced that there are alternative ways of living together on this fragile planet — ones shaped not by the narrow pursuit of self-interest, by the politics of exclusion, but by the pursuit of the shared opportunities, joys and resonance that are available with each other and with nature,” he said.

Higgins said that as he leaves the presidency this year he wanted to reiterate his “belief that words and how they are used matter, and furthermore, that the ideas which they draw on matter”.

His term in office is due to end in November. Higgins has served as President of Ireland for the past 14 years.

He concluded: “I am convinced beyond any doubt that, in spite of all the challenges we face, there remains within the Irish people a profound and unyielding commitment to seeing beyond the self, to seeing the other as a friend, the principles of generosity, decency and care for one another.”