Obama to address public event in Dublin city

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama will address a public event in Dublin city, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has confirmed in the Dáil.

Senior US officials will arrive in Dublin “in the coming days” to agree final details of the visit which includes a meeting with President Mary McAleese in Áras an Uachtaráin, a meeting with the Taoiseach and a visit to Moneygall, Co Offaly where one of his antecedents was born.

Mr Kenny told Socialist TD Clare Daly (Dublin North) “the public address in Dublin will be part of a major entertainment event. The programme and venue have yet to be confirmed. Entrance will be free of charge with tickets available to the public.” An estimated 1,000 international media personnel will be in Ireland for Mr Obama’s visit and that of Queen Elizabeth.

The main focus of the event was to welcome the president and first lady, he said. Ms Daly questioned the lack of detail given the imminence of the visit, but Mr Kenny said, “I can’t give you all the details because I don’t have them.”

He said that before the US president visits “members of his own administration travel first and discuss with those authorities the actual detail of where the president and first lady will travel”.

He added the “Dublin city event is not actually agreed yet because the US personnel have to look at the sites in question and give their view on the range and extent of the numbers who might turn up”.

Ms Daly asked whether Mr Kenny would discuss whether Mr Obama intended to implement an initiative to deal with undocumented citizens in the US.

The Taoiseach said that because of the mid-term election and the changed control of the House of Representatives, “the much sought after comprehensive legislation to deal with immigration in my view will not now happen in the short term”.

Mr Kenny added a package of enforcement measures may be necessary for homeland security in the US, and when that is proceeding through the US political system “an appropriate amendment in Ireland’s case would be to look for the E3 renewable visa system”.

Richard Boyd Barrett (People Before Profit, Dún Laoghaire) said the estimated cost of the two visits was €25 million, and asked: “Would it not be better to spend the money that will be spent on President Obama’s visit on something that would provide jobs, help the vulnerable or build a couple of schools or a hospital?”

Mr Kenny said protests that Mr Boyd Barrett was involved in “have accrued costs which might have gone towards providing computers in some of the schools you mentioned”.