Taoiseach has not yet received White House invitation

THE TAOISEACH has not yet received a formal invitation to the White House to make the traditional shamrock presentation to President Barack Obama for St Patrick’s Day.

However, Brian Cowen told the Dáil, “we’ve had no indication as yet that there will be any change to various arrangements which have become established in recent times. But I shouldn’t anticipate agreement until it’s forthcoming officially.”

During Taoiseach’s questions, Mr Cowen told Opposition leaders that he intended to visit the US for St Patrick’s Day.

“While the programme for my visit has not yet been finalised, I would expect to meet the Ireland-America Economic Advisory Board. My department maintains contact with the board primarily through the Irish Embassy in Washington, as well as through visits and meetings.”

He was pressed by the Labour leader Eamon Gilmore about the traditional White House meeting.

“Do you intend to meet President Obama during the visit to the US on St Patrick’s Day? There has traditionally been a shamrock presentation event in the White House or there certainly has been for a number of years.

“Will that occur again this year and will it still be in Waterford Crystal – the presentation – or will there be any change in that?”

The Taoiseach replied: “Obviously, as I said in the my response, no detailed arrangements have yet been agreed regarding the visit.

“It is my hope to visit Washington and perhaps New York as well . . . around St Patrick’s Day and to meet various interests there, similar to what predecessors have done in the past.”

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny questioned Mr Cowen about his phone conversation with Mr Obama in November to congratulate him on his election.

“Did you invite him to Moneygall and did he invite you to the White House?” asked Mr Kenny, of the Co Offaly town which genealogists have identified as the home of a great-grandparent of President Obama.

Later Mr Kenny suggested that an invitation to the US president to visit Moneygall “might at least be a diversion from all the other woes”. The Taoiseach said: “I shall invite him to the country first and if, he accepts, we can decide afterwards on the location.”

Later there were sharp exchanges between Mr Cowen and Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, who questioned whether there was more to the meetings that a “photo opportunity”.

He said there was a “critical need to start ratcheting up pressure” on the issue of the “undocumented Irish” in the US.

He also asked if the Taoiseach had raised the issue of extraordinary rendition.

Mr Cowen said the St Patrick’s Day occasions “are substantive meetings and any suggestion to the contrary is rather ungracious”.

He said the undocumented Irish would be “handled appropriately and in a way that might achieve progress for us”.

It was easy to “ratchet up pressure” but “what we must do is build on the good will we have generated on this issue”.

Mr Cowen also said that since the Guantánamo detention centre was closing, “I do not see the purpose of an inspection regime”.