We may not have a stand at Expo '98 in Lisbon, but we will have a presence. Blazing Saddles, the volunteer cyclists who travel the globe raising money for the National Council for the Blind, are currently en route from Lourdes to Lisbon, via the Pyrenees. They blaze into Lisbon on Tuesday, and on Wednesday will have a celebratory end-of-cycle dinner at Expo, which will be addressed by the chairman of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, Des O'Malley.
The 200-strong group, which in recent years has been to Canada, South Africa and the US, was seen off from Lourdes by Bishop William Murphy of Co Kerry and cheered on their way by 500 pilgrims from all over Ireland. On this occasion they hope to raise £200,000. In Bilbao, the group, led by champion cyclist Sean Kelly and the cycling chairman, barrister Fergus O'Hagan, wore black arm bands to mourn the two Spanish visitors killed in last month's Omagh bomb. Kelly's address, in Spanish, to the welcoming crowd and the minute's silence he called for received wide coverage in the Spanish media.
That we decided, alone in Europe, against exhibiting at the Lisbon Expo (costs were cited as a factor), has been strongly criticised. But we will be at Hanover 2000. Already, the chief executive of the IDA, Kieran McGowan, who retires at the end of the year, has been appointed Ireland's commissioner general for Expo, an honorary position overseeing our participation in two years' time.