The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, James McDaid, is off to Egypt for a couple of days in the New Year to show solidarity with a tourism industry devastated by the recent massacre of more than 60 tourists in Luxor by Muslim fundamentalists. The idea was the minister's own and, he said, is a gesture of goodwill for the New Year. He and his two officials hope to meet President Hosni Mubarak as well as their counterparts in the tourism ministry.
It will be McDaid's first visit to the African continent. Prior to this, the nearest he got, he says, was on a boat off Gibraltar, but that didn't last long. He was no sooner aboard than the chief whip rang him to come back post haste as the Dail was being reconvened for the Beef Tribunal debate.
