‘The most Irish president since
organise previous visits by former US presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama have been told the Biden stay is likely to proceed in October, with the contingency that ‘any change in circumstances in Ukraine’ could affect the trip.
They have been tasked by the Government with initiating security protocols for the autumn visit.
A senior security source told the MoS: ‘We have been told to start putting everything in place for a reconnaissance by the Secret Service during the summer and setting up the transport infrastructure.
‘But the proviso is that if the Ukrainian war is still going on and any events connected to that are particularly critical [then] all bets are off.’
US Secret Service officers will travel to Ireland next month ahead of the planned Biden visit, senior gardaí were told.
One source said: ‘Gardaí will then assist these powerful federal officers reconnoitre transport routes and potential accommodation in Dublin, Cork and Louth.’
President Biden, who has ancestral connections with Mayo and Louth, is expected to meet Coalition
‘Presidents love to visit Ireland in election year’
leaders in Dublin and then travel to Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s home city of Cork.
Ministers this weekend confirmed the October date for President Biden’s visit is being discussed in Government.
There is also an admission that another invitation for An Taoiseach to the Oval Office this year – which was speculated about following the last-minute cancellation of Micheál Martin’s visit to the White House on St Patrick’s Day after he contracted Covid-19 – is now ‘highly unlikely’.
One minister told the MoS: ‘The president is coming, and October is the date that we have been assured is when it is going to happen.’
The Cabinet member added: ‘A visit by a US president is hardly a bad consolation for missing out on the Oval Office.’
Mr Martin formally invited President Biden to visit Ireland while he was in Washington DC in March when the traditional Shamrock ceremony in the White House had to be cancelled.
A Cabinet source told the MoS: ‘Democratic US politicians love to visit Ireland in an election year, and there are vital mid-terms [US elections] in November. We would expect Joe Biden, who is closer to his Irish heritage than any US president since John F Kennedy, to come here in October.’
As well as security sources preparing for a visit by the US Secret Service in the coming weeks, senior gardaí have been asked to start organising rosters for armed and specialist units in Dublin for the weeks either side of the October Budget.
Transport infrastructure will also have to be ramped up ahead of the visit. A source told the MoS: ‘Right now we are only being asked to prepare liaison teams to meet the Secret Service, who may arrive in June. This is all tentative at the moment. Biden is getting on in age and all that, but the big problem, we are being told, is the war in Ukraine.
‘The US administration isn’t keen on flagging a visit so far in advance, with the additional security required for a US president in Europe with a war going on.
‘But if that conflict escalates in any fashion over the summer, or even instantly in October, then the president needs to be at the centre of power in Washington and can’t be seen swanning around Ireland.’
The MoS previously revealed details of former US president Donald Trump’s June 2019 visit to Ireland six weeks before he arrived here. At the time, Mr Trump flew into Shannon Airport and stayed at his Trump Doonbeg Resort in Co. Clare before flying on to France for D Day 75th Commemorations.
Security sources said that they have been asked to look at the logistics for a three-day presidential visit that takes in Dublin, Cork and Louth, where Mr Biden has ancestral links. President Biden’s great-grandfather James Finnegan emigrated as a child to the US from Louth in 1850.
One minister said: ‘Logic says it’s October for Biden and so does politics.
‘It’s quite a formal thing for a Taoiseach to invite the president. I mean, he has been formally invited now so that’s the first thing.
‘The second thing is it is a statement of fact that there are efforts because the Taoiseach and the president couldn’t meet in person in March to see if something could happen before the year is out.
‘So the next best thing is that the president comes here.
‘And then the third thing is he [Biden] has expressed a wish to come here.
‘The fourth thing is he obviously has November mid-term elections and a lot of American presidents tend to be in Ireland in an election year, particularly Democrats.
‘So that’s why the visit has to be October.’