Dara Calleary defends St Patrick Day’s trip

Calleary defends St Patrick’s Day trip


Anton McNulty

MAYO TD and Minister for Labour Affairs, Dara Calleary has defended his decision to travel to the US and Canada for St Patrick’s week by saying it is ‘essential in order to attracting inward investment’.
As is tradition, the Taoiseach and a number of cabinet Ministers will be travelling the globe over St Patrick’s week but this year it has been criticised due to the economic downturn and the expense involved. As Minister for Labour Affairs, Dara Calleary will be travelling to Toronto this Wednesday until March 14 and will be in Boston for St Patrick’s Day.
Responding to questions from The Mayo News, Minister Calleary said the emphasis of both visits is business particularly in the trade and tourism sector and also renewing links with the Irish Diaspora.
“St Patrick’s Day is a unique showcase for Ireland. Most countries would give their right arm for the kind of exposure we get at this time. Ministerial visits help maximise that exposure, our aim is to translate the exposure into economic gain via increased trade, tourism and inward investment,” he said.
During his stay in Toronto he will be addressing the Ireland Fund of Canada Lunch, which will have 1,200 attendees from across the business community in Canada, and will be meeting with the Global Irish Network. He said he will also be doing some work for Enterprise Ireland and Tourism Ireland and will be a guest at the Toronto St Patrick’s Parade, on Sunday, March 14 and will also be having ministerial level meetings during his stay.
Minister Calleary will then move to Boston for business meetings with some of the Irish groups in the city and will be spending St Patrick’s Day in the city where he said he will undertake six different functions from eight in the morning until nine in the evening.
Meanwhile the role of Minister Calleary as Minister for Labour Affairs came under attack at yesterday’s monthly meeting of Mayo County Council, where he was criticised for not including Mayo in a list of counties in the IDA’s new ‘Horizon 2020’ strategy which will be prioritised for job creation.
Fine Gael councillor, Joe Mellett said that the blueprint of the strategy was that 50 per cent of all jobs created outside Dublin and Cork would take place in Sligo, Donegal, Limerick and Waterford and said that Minister Calleary should be ashamed for not including Mayo. However, Cllr Annie-Mae Reape said there was no list prioritising counties and said that the attack was ‘opportunistic’ and unfair to the Minister.