Enda Kenny to meet Barack Obama in the US during St Patrick’s Day celebrations
In a highly-curtailed programme of events, he will travel to Washington DC for events on March 15 and 16.
He will depart for Brussels to attend an EU summit on St Patrick’s Day as his presence is mandatory.
The condensed schedule of events will see Mr Kenny only attending events in Washington. In previous years he also travelled to New York.
Mr Kenny’s department only confirmed the details of the trip yesterday. There had been doubt over the trip, given the failure of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition to be re-elected.
During the trip, Mr Kenny is expected to meet US President Barack Obama at the White House, and is also due to attend a breakfast meeting with vice-president Joe Biden.
An Irish-American dinner on March 16 is also part of the itinerary.
It was confirmed at a briefing for political correspondents that the Office of An Taoiseach has received an invitation from the White House, so at present Mr Kenny will be the one to travel.
However, given the rising calls for him to resign from within his own party and the fact he will not be re-elected Taoiseach on March 10 when the Dáil reconvenes, there is still an outside chance someone else could be the one to travel.
It was also confirmed that a much smaller group of ministers than normal will travel for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations, because of the lack of a new government.
A Government spokesman confirmed ministers James Reilly, Alex White, and Ged Nash, who lost their seats, will not be travelling abroad to represent the country.
Tánaiste Joan Burton is expected to travel but the destination has yet to be confirmed.
Earlier, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said that he believed Mr Kenny should still travel for St Patrick’s Day butthere is a “question mark” over whether other ministers should go abroad.
Mr Adams said there was “an option for them not to go around the world. In the past we’ve been represented very well by ambassadors and consulates. I think there is an argument for the Taoiseach, even though he might not have the mandate, to represent the State”.
“We [Sinn Féin] haven’t discussed this in any detail but I’m sure people will be a bit offended if they see somebody traipsing off as a minister when indeed they were rejected at the polls. Now I’m not personalising that. That’s just the reality of that.”
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