Housing crisis questions follow Varadkar to Washington DC

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking in the Senate Room at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.  Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

We've all been there. You travel 3,600 miles from home and all anyone wants to talk about is domestic life.

On the first of a three-day visit to the US today, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar found the Irish media less interested in his various meetings with business leaders than the potential effects of the eviction ban ending and advertisements taken out by the Friends of Sinn Féin calling for Irish unity.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Mr Varadkar kicked off a three-day visit to the US capital in the aptly named Senate Room of the Mayflower Hotel, a short walk from where the week will culminate at the White House, and was effusive in his welcome for US President Joe Biden's planned visit to Irelandin the coming weeks.

"We're going to roll out the red carpet and we're going to be making sure he feels very welcome," he said, adding that the Mayo roots of Mr Biden made the planned visit a homecoming of sorts.

"In many ways, President Biden is coming home. 

He speaks of himself as being an Irish person, of being an Irish-American. 

"We'll particularly want to thank him and thank America for the pivotal role they've played, both in helping to build our economy and helping to build the peace in Ireland."

But the Taoiseach was keen, as he would be at a later speech to the US Chamber of Commerce, to remind America that the relationship is now very much "a two-way street". 

Of course, the Celtic Tiger was built largely on a wave of US investment in Ireland, but Ireland is now the ninth-largest investor in the US.

Approximately 650 Irish-owned companies operate across all 50 US states, employing 100,000 people in sectors as broad as construction, education, energy, environmental, medical devices, and software.

As the Taoiseach said: "Not bad for a country of 5m people."

The veterans in the press corps of this week abroad can shepherd neophytes like this writer because much of it is a yearly tradition, from the bowl of shamrock to the swanky Ireland Funds Dinner. 

But another set-piece in the week is the taking of ads in US broadsheets by Friends of Sinn Féin which call for Irish unity. The ads call for the establishment of a citizens' assembly on the issue and seek to drum up the size of Irish-American support that was seen around the Peace Process.

But the Taoiseach was holding little truck with the ads, saying they are "not helpful".

But it was housing to which the Taoiseach was dragged back to again and again, the millstone around his Government's neck. 

He spoke of how the eviction ban had to be ended because it was merely storing up problems and how he was not embarrassed to discuss the situation with multinationals here.

Tomorrow, Mr Varadkar will focus on the Irish diaspora, including an event for the African-American Irish diaspora. He will hope that the focus remains on matters foreign and not domestic.