Government on the move in promotion bid

The Government will make a near-400-mile round trip from Dublin this week to demonstrate that the country is fully open again to visitors after the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his cabinet are to meet in Killarney to make the point.

It will be the first cabinet meeting to be staged in the picturesque lake and mountain-fringed Co Kerry town since the foundation of the state more than 80 years ago - and Killarney is delighted at the prospect.

Sean Coyne, chairman of the Killarney of the Welcomes (KOTW) organisation, said ‘‘The international media gave the impression that Ireland was over-run with foot-and-mouth.

‘‘This, added to the closing off of the countryside to protect the Irish food industry, was taken up - entirely erroneously - by many potential visitors to Ireland to mean that there was some sort of health danger in coming to Ireland and that our food was unsafe to eat.

‘‘For all of these reasons, we are delighted that Mr Ahern responded positively to our request to bring this meeting to Killarney.

‘‘Having the Taoiseach and his ministers favouring some of the uniqueness of Killarney will send out the clearest message that rural Ireland is open for visitors and that there is a huge range of things for them to do in one of the most beautiful environments in the world.

‘‘We hope that Mr Ahern and some of the cabinet might take a ride in a period horse-drawn landau of the kind that Queen Victoria used when she came to Killarney in 1861.

‘‘The plan is that the landau will be flanked by 12 racing cyclists, highlighting Killarney’s bid to host World Cycling Championships in 2004.’’

The Killarney move will mark the latest in a series of normalisation developments authorised by the Government following their imposition of some of Europe’s most stringent anti-foot-and-mouth measures in response to the outbreak earlier this year.

Just one case of the disease has been reported in the country - among sheep on a farm close to the Northern Ireland border in Co Louth.

A spread of the virus on the scale of that in Britain would have devastated Ireland’s agriculture-dependent economy.