Ministers to visit cities across world

An exodus of ministers to foreign countries for the traditional St Patrick’s Day celebrations will see them and their officials and Enda Kenny visit dozens of cities across four continents.

Ruairi Quinn, the education minister, will be left in charge of the country as his colleagues travel abroad in an attempt to attract foreign investment and business.

The Taoiseach and Tánaiste will be out of the country at the same time for three days, leaving Mr Quinn in charge as the most senior minister.

Mr Kenny will be in the US from Mar 16 to 21.

The Government is prioritising foreign investment in Ireland during visits and meetings with country and business leaders.

Enda Kenny will meet business leaders during his trips to Chicago as well as in New York, where he will ring the opening bell and meet traders at the stock exchange.

He will also attend an American Ireland Fund dinner in Washington ahead of his meeting with Barack Obama at the White House.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore will spend four days in Canada, a trip that will focus on business meetings as well as the new Irish emigrant community there during trips to Montreal and Toronto.

Richard Bruton, the jobs minister, will spend five days on the west coast of the US in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

During his time in Silicon Valley, he will hold meetings with companies on technology, software, social media, and online gaming.

These include both multibillion dollar multinational companies and high-growth start-ups which already employ large numbers of people in Ireland and are considering expansion. He will also host a discussion with Irish entrepreneurs based in the San Francisco area.

As part of Ireland’s attempt to attract investment from China and boost co-operation in ventures in education, minister of state Ciarán Cannon will travel to China for over a week where he will meet officials from Chinese universities in Beijing and Shanghai which are partners to Irish institutions.

A number of ministers will travel to 10 European countries. These include Michael Noonan (France), Pat Rabbitte (Italy), Simon Coveney (Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium), Paul Kehoe (Germany) and John Perry (Finland and Sweden).

Leo Varadkar, the transport minister, will visit Birmingham and London while minister of state Michael Ring will travel to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Brendan Howlin, the public expenditure minister, will also travel to Singapore.

Alan Shatter, the justice minister, will make six stops during his visits to Australia and New Zealand over eight days. Francis Fitzgerald, the minister for children, will travel to Boston for six days.

The Taoiseach and eight ministers travelled to eight countries for the St Patrick’s Day festivities last year. This compared with the previous year when 22 cabinet and ministers of state with the last government travelled to 24 countries.