The Taoiseach is to be conferred with his first honorary degree at Boston College on Monday. The ceremony will take place in a football stadium in front of 20,000 proud parents, there for the graduation of their offspring. If it rains they will move into an indoor basketball arena. Bertie's 15minute speech may be carried live on a local TV station and he is expected to attend a Fianna Fail function before returning to Dublin that evening.
This Doctorate of Laws will be his first degree, honorary or otherwise. By profession he is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public and Financial Accountants.
Dr-to-be Bertie is not the only leading member of the Oireachtas to be jetting back and forth from the US these days. Fine Gael leader John Bruton was there last week addressing the Ireland Chamber of Commerce in St Louis. A delegation from the Oireachtas, led by the Ceann Comhairle Seamus Pattison and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Deputy Des O'Malley, has also just returned from a visit to New York, Washington and Boston. Deputies Michael Noonan, Dinny McGinley, Matt Brennan, Tom Gildea, Pat Upton, Michael Kitt, Alan Shatter and Brendan Smith met leading figures in all three cities including Newt Gingrich and Senator Ted Kennedy.