PERMISSION HAS been granted for a group of 60 US politicians from the Massachusetts-based State Legislative Leadership Foundation (SLLF) to hold a meeting this month at Leinster House.
The SLLF is a non-profit, non-partisan body committed to providing “specialised educational and enrichment programmes” for approximately 350 house speakers, senate presidents and other senior figures in the legislatures of the 50 US states.
Oireachtas members will also be invited to attend the meeting which is part of the foundation’s 12th annual Transatlantic Leadership Forum, taking place in Dublin on August 18th-22nd.
This year’s theme is “Europe at the crossroads – the concerns, ideas and hopes for the future of the Old Continent.” Similar events were held previously in Athens, Budapest, Cologne, Ljubljana, Luxembourg, Riga, Salzburg and Stockholm.
Corporate suppliers of funding to SLLF, which are also represented on its advisory council, include ATT Corporation, Boston Scientific, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Eastman Kodak, General Electric, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft Foods Global, Pernod Ricard, Procter Gamble, the Raytheon Company, Unilever United States Inc, Verizon, Wal-Mart and Yahoo.
The US delegation will be led by Stephen G Lakis, president of SLLF in the US. In 1999, the foundation established a transatlantic educational network to promote increased communication and co- operation among political, business and academic leaders in Europe and North America.