FG ‘shock’ at St Patrick’s Day junkets for Labour ministers

FINE Gael ministers have expressed shock that three Labour Ministers who will soon return to the backbenches will take significant trips to foreign destinations on St Patrick’s Day.

Tánaiste Joan Burton is to travel to Rome and the fashion capital of Milan in Italy next week. Environment Minster Alan Kelly will undertake a three-city trip to California and Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin will go to India.

There is a severely curtailed series of St Patrick’s Day ministe- rial trips. Nevertheless, Joan Burton will be heading to Italy even though she will soon exit government, return to the back benches and almost certainly forfeit the leadership of her severely curtailed party. Of the other two Labour Ministers, Alan Kelly will go to Sacramento, San Francisco and San Diego and Brendan Howlin will take the long-haul to India.

Labour has only seven seats in the Dáil and the party will not be in government, so the three travelling TDs will not be Ministers in any new government formed.

‘The point of these trips is to build up relationships and to drum up business,’ said a Fine Gael source last night, ‘it is a bit strange that these three should travel, as they won’t be in government for the foreseeable future.’

But a Labour spokesman defended the trips: ‘The Government has agreed a prioritised list of destinations to ensure that the opportunity to promote Irish trade and attract investment is not lost.’