Republic Day was the day when Malta achieved full nationhood. President George Vella's speech on the occasion of the last Republic Day celebrations was one of the best-ever presidential speeches for all I can remember.

In a nutshell, he ably managed to highlight our country's current ailments and shortcomings while expressing hope for a positive future and path that would make Maltese proud of their nation.

It was a half-hour speech that lauded our excellent healthcare, social services and free education. Of course, no one would beg to differ from heaping praise on those respective authorities. We owe them a lot for going out of their way to ensure that we have the best health, education and social welfare services possible. Yet, there followed a number of major and pressing concerns expressed and listed by President Vella with which all Maltese of goodwill and national pride cannot but agree irrespective of one's political leaning.

He cleverly and timely made use of this annual presidential speech as an opportunity to talk about important issues facing Maltese and offer his ideas on solving the nation's problems, including suggestions for new laws and policies.

It was an opportunity for him to review the past year's accomplishments and preview his expectations for the future. There could not have been a better opportunity than this occasion since all branches of the government were present in the same chamber. Let us not for one moment forget that the President is the Head of State and represents all that makes up the Maltese Islands. It is a constitutional figure that can best provide a diagnosis and bill of health of our nation from time to time, in so far as the Office of the President is meant to follow the country's affairs and performance from an impartial and dispassionate point of view. It embodies the nation's conscience.

Of course, that did not stop President Vella from passionately expressing his personal views on a subject that is well known to be close to his heart. He courageously did not refrain from commenting on and raising the issue of abortion. He outlined his expectation that all the points in issue are addressed before the amendment is signed into law. We have to appreciate that he could not help doing otherwise as, by law, he will have to be the one to sign such a law as long as it is not in conflict with his expressed conscience in which case the only way out would be to resign. Actually, more than a passionate expression, it was more of a strong plea and exhortation.

He then dwelt on his, and, undoubtedly, of the populace's concerns over protecting the environment, the safety of construction workers, the increase in roaad fatalities, the aftermath of DCG's assassination, the effective integration with foreign residents, and the fight against poverty, social exclusion and bullying.

These are all topics and pressing social issues that regularly hit the headlines over the last year. Over and above those, he could not help not mentioning the growing scourge of the little-understood domestic violence.

This is an invisible enemy that has long been eroding the desired target of reaching gender equality within all strata of our society.

He also did not fail to reserve due importance to the increasing cost-of-living prices that continue to hamper many families in making ends meet and leading a dignified life. Too many family households are having to do away with basic commodities in order to survive on a bare minimum with terrible social, educational and physical and mental health consequences.

The most basic commodity that tops the list is simply having access to affordable and basic housing accommodation which is becoming even more beyond reach and inaccessible as time goes by in spite of ample social and financial state aid.

Moving on to other current issues, President Vella stressed the urgent need to formulate better integration problems to cater for migrants of whatever origin or culture and to implement them effectively. Social cohesion must be fundamental for a better society so yearned for by the majority. Apart from that, he also urged an urgent consensus for having the vacant offices of such fundamental institutions as the Ombudsman and the Standards Commissioner filled in the least time possible and to not have a repetition of such unnecessary delays in the future. This was a pivotal point he made since here we are dealing with institutions that are indispensable for monitoring the proper observance of the tenets of good governance.

So, having briefly analysed the contents of the President's address, what must one make out of it and where do we go from there? Although we cannot gauge the impact of his speech on public opinion, it definitely appears to have been one that surely increases his esteem in the eyes of the general public. Indeed, more than moving public opinion, his speech should act as informational cues for our legislators. The rhetoric we witnessed in the contents of his address proved to be an effective and important tool of presidential leadership. It had the potential to set the public agenda, alter public opinion, influence media coverage or, indeed, even change the national conversation on important policy issues or people's presuppositions about government and politics.

It was a speech that pinpointed our President's policy preferences and allowed them to meet public expectations. We can never know what tendencies influenced our President to deliver them. Perhaps deteriorating conditions in the political environment caused a change in President Vella's behaviour. Whatever, President Vella showed genuine concerns and his solicitations must not fall on deaf ears, and we must not wait for another national occasion in which our President will have to repeat or remind us of issues that need to be urgently addressed.

As a country with President Vella at the helm, we are emerging from a dark and difficult period. His was a remarkable address that carved out a path of rebuilding, a path of renewal, a path of transparency and accountability, a path of justice and the rule of law. Most important of all, he exuded a confidence that, as a nation in unity, no matter the challenges, we will walk this path together and we will prevail.

Dr Mark Said is an advocate