MINISTER FOR the Marine Simon Coveney has said he believes US president Barack Obama will include the Taoiseach’s home county of Mayo in his visit to Ireland next month.
“I would be surprised if US president Barack Obama did not travel to the west of Ireland,” Mr Coveney said, speaking at the Marine Institute in Galway yesterday where he hosted a visit by Prince Albert of Monaco.
“For a lot of people coming to Ireland means coming to the west,” Mr Coveney said.
“If you look at the prince’s [Prince Albert] connections, it’s back to Mayo, and if you look at his wife-to-be’s connections with Ireland, it goes back to Kerry.
“So the west features prominently and rightly so,” he said, adding that he understood that the US authorities were looking at up to 1,000 potential venues which would be narrowed down.
There were “obvious reasons” why Mayo could be on the itinerary, given that it was the Taoiseach’s constituency,” Mr Coveney said.
Minister of State for Tourism Michael Ring confirmed yesterday that he was “working with the Taoiseach Enda Kenny” to secure a visit by Mr Obama to the constituency.
Mr Coveney also welcomed a memorandum of understanding signed by him with Prince Albert yesterday which will involve a partnership between the prestigious Institut Oceanographique of Monaco and the Marine Institute in Galway.
This will involve extensive “collaboration, shared information and shared marine research”, Mr Coveney said, which was very significant given the international status of the institute in Monaco.
“The marine is going to be part of Ireland’s economic recovery in my view, in terms of finding solutions to an energy crisis which is developing in Ireland because we have an over-reliance on importing fossil fuels,” Mr Coveney said.
Ocean energy and a fishing industry worth over €1 billion annually would be part of that solution to the economic situation, and the Marine Institute’s research was central to this, Mr Coveney added.
