The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid, has earmarked St Patrick's Day, 1999, for a major "homecoming festival" to mark the millennium.
He told the Humbert Summer School in Ballina, Co Mayo, last night that the millennium was "an opportune time for a party", as well as a time of hope and reflection. He had asked Mr Michael Colgan to draw up detailed proposals for a national festival which would involve the regions and official and commercial organisations.
"The millennium year is an auspicious occasion for the entire Irish nation to come together from around the world and celebrate," Dr McDaid said.
"This gathering of the diaspora in a great homecoming party would, I believe, be a suitable way to ring out the old and ring in the new.
"I came into office with the idea of having a national festival to celebrate the millennium. Providentially, I was visited shortly afterwards by Mr Michael Colgan, who over the last two years has transformed the St Patrick's Day celebration in Dublin.
"Michael Colgan had been thinking along similar lines and presented the outlines of a proposal he had been working on for some tie.
"Our national day, St Patrick's Day on March 17th, being earlier in the year than other major international festivals, allows Ireland an opportunity to get in ahead of the rest of the world in kicking off the festivities.
"St Patrick's Day has huge international recognition and offers our tourism industry a valuable platform during the off-peak period to market Ireland as both a millennium destination and as a destination for the next millennium.
"It will also be a huge party which people throughout Ireland can enjoy. It should be a party which will showcase the very best of Irish creativity, imagination, and ingenuity in the tourism, cultural and sports arenas. And it should be a party that will stretch efforts to define craic to the limit," the Minister said.