UNITED STATES:HILLARY CLINTON has promised to upgrade the post of United States special envoy to Northern Ireland, basing the envoy in the White House with a direct reporting line to the president.
The current special envoy, Paula Dobriansky, like her two predecessors under the Bush administration, Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss, is based in the state department, reporting to the president through the secretary of state.
"Hillary will lend her personal support and the diplomatic resources of the United States to help resolve the outstanding issues on the road to permanent peace. She will name a White House special envoy on Northern Ireland tasked with assisting her in her efforts to provide diplomatic and economic support to Northern Ireland," Mrs Clinton's campaign said this weekend.
In a position paper on Northern Ireland published on Saturday, the Clinton campaign also promised to maintain the International Fund for Ireland through annual appropriations from Congress and to promote US investment in Ireland.
Mrs Clinton's Democratic rival Barack Obama's campaign responded to the position paper by repeating its charge that she has exaggerated her role in the Northern peace process.
"In President Clinton's own book about his work in Northern Ireland, he did not talk about any particular contribution by Hillary Clinton," Mr Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said.
Mrs Clinton, who marched on Saturday in two St Patrick's Day parades in Pennsylvania, which holds a Democratic presidential primary next month, said on Saturday that her engagement in Northern Ireland had been consistent throughout her years as first lady and as a US senator.
Her record in Northern Ireland has become an issue in the US election as Mr Obama has questioned the substance of her foreign policy record. Irish-Americans are an important demographic group in Pennsylvania, where they account for 16 per cent of the population, but Chris Carney, a Democratic congressman from the state, says it is not clear that they vote as a political bloc.