Taoiseach says no decision taken on St Patrick’s Day visit to meet Biden

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has repeatedly refused to be drawn on if he will travel to Washington in March for the traditional “shamrock ceremony” with new US president Joe Biden.

Mr Martin said no decision had been taken in relation to the trip, which normally takes place close to St Patrick’s Day on March 17th, and indicated it would be another several weeks before the matter was decided.

“We’ve made no decision, we’ve said that both governments would engage in terms of how we would mark St Patrick’s Day this March,” he told the Neil Prenderville show on Red FM on Thursday.

“Most governments would give their right arm to have the type of opportunities that we normally and ordinarily have on Patrick’s Day, but because of Covid-19 that creates a context.

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“There will be engagement over the next number of weeks, but no firm decision has been made one way or the other.”

Mr Martin said the Irish and US administrations would endeavour to celebrate St Patrick’s Day “in some shape” if he does not travel.

He also expressed bemusement at this being an issue and suggested that the debate had not originated with him. “Out of nowhere (there was) a campaign saying ‘he shouldn’t’ go or ‘the Taoiseach shouldn’t go’ which I found interesting because I certainly didn’t initiate any commentary on it.

“And that in itself is interesting the way politics has developed in recent times, social media campaigns develop around issues of this kind. It was created and developed out of nowhere because I certainly hadn’t indicated that we would be going on the 17th of March,” he said.

Asked if there was one rule for him and another for others, he denied it saying, “That’s not true. I haven’t been travelling - at all. I happen to be Taoiseach of the country and anything I do in a travel context is for the country, not for me.”

Asked would a Zoom call not be received better by the public, he said it was not about optics.

“(President Biden) has a very good team and quite a significant Irish-American input into his team and I think we can open up areas of joint initiatives on some fronts which I would be interested in doing.

“Samantha Power is involved. We would like to involve ourselves with USAid in terms of joint projects in the developing world.”

Mr Biden’s great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt grew up in Ballina, Co Mayo.

Asked would he be vaccinated before travelling were he to go, the Taoiseach said: “These are all considerations that we’ll have to consider at the time. As of now we’re clear that we want all senior citizens, particularly people in nursing homes, and their staff and all frontline workers vaccinated first. That is the priority.”