The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mr Newt Gingrich, begins a seven-day visit to Ireland today to show support for the Northern Ireland peace accord and search out his Irish ancestors.
He will have dinner with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, who is on holiday in Kerry, in Adare next Thursday.
Mr Gingrich is the third-ranking official in the US after the President and Vice-President. He may yet seek a nomination to be the Republican presidential candidate in the year 2000.
Mr Gingrich and the six members of his bipartisan delegation will also discuss a new proposal to grant 50,000 non-immigrant US visas over five years to young persons from Northern Ireland and the Border counties. It has been tabled as a Bill in the House of Representatives by Congressman Jim Walsh, who is part of the delegation.
The visas would permit young, unskilled individuals to come to the US for a maximum period of five years to learn a craft and get a temporary job. But the proposal has not had formal endorsement from Mr Gingrich. The White House also has refrained from endorsing it.
Tomorrow the US delegation will visit Kilkenny sights and have dinner with the Ceann Comhairle, Mr Seamus Pattison, who led a parliamentary delegation to Washington earlier this year.
After Government and US embassy briefings in Dublin on Monday, the delegation travels to Belfast, where it will spend Tuesday and Wednesday. In Derry and Donegal the Speaker will meet the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, and visit the O'Doherty Genealogy Centre to try to trace his family roots.
After dinner with the Shannon Development agency at Knappogue Castle on Friday, the delegation will return to the US.