The Tβnaiste, Ms Harney and the North's Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Sir Reg Empey, have accepted invitations to attend a US-Irish business summit in Washington organised by the National Assembly of Irish American Republicans.
The summit, at the end of next month, will also be attended by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, the Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and possibly US President George Bush.
The summit differs from two high-profile Irish-US economic forums organised in the United States by the Clinton Administration, in that political party leaders from the Republic and Northern Ireland are not being invited and the focus is purely on business. The goal of the summit is to "provide a forum for relationship building and dialogue among the leaders of the Bush Administration, US corporations and industry, and their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland," according to the organisers.
Irish and American CEOs and presidents are being invited from three sectors; biotechnology/life sciences, tele-communications/information technology and financial services.
The driving force behind the October 31st-November 2nd summit is Ms Susan Ann Davis, president of the National Assembly of Irish-American Republicans, who is also president of the Washington public relations firm Susan Davis International.
Leading Irish American Democrats such as Senators Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd will join Republican Senators and House members to co-host a Congressional reception. Letters of invitation say that the inspiration for the summit was "President Bush's St Patrick's Day call for even stronger bonds between the United States and the people of Ireland."
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)