SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald is travelling Stateside this weekend to meet with political and business leaders in California.
During the visit, McDonald will brief Governor Gavin Newsom, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and a number of State and Congressional representatives.
She will also be meeting with senior global executives from several US companies including Google and Salesforce.
McDonald will address business leaders at an event hosted by the Bay Area Council and will also meet with Irish Consul General Micheál Smith with Tourism Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA.
She will address the Labor Day breakfast organised by the San Francisco Labor Council and attend a number of Irish Community events in Páirc na nGael and the United Ireland Cultural Centre.
She will deliver a keynote address at the University of San Francisco on Wednesday evening which deals with the topic of “A Decade of Opportunity: Building a New and United Ireland”.
Speaking about the trip, McDonald said “while we are dealing with many challenges, this is a time of real hope and opportunity in Ireland”.
The social and economic opportunities are immense and she wants to see them realised, she said.
Planning and preparation is required, said McDonald, stating that this is something the current government are “completely failing to do”.
“That is why we have a generation being left behind, a generation who will be worse off than their parents and locked out of opportunity and home ownership. This cannot go on – we need change, we need progress, and we need opportunity. We need our young people to have a stake in the future; a future in Ireland,” she said.
United Ireland
McDonald said she will also be speaking to political leaders about the future of a united Ireland. She said with with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaching, “we are now beginning to write the next chapter in Ireland’s story – the reunification of Ireland”.
“The role of the US in securing the Good Friday Agreement was critical and their voice will be just as important as we move towards referenda on Irish unity,” she said.
“But as we look to the future we are dealing with huge challenges globally and in Ireland. The ongoing war in Ukraine, a cost of living crisis, the fallout of a toxic Brexit, a very real and present climate emergency and a full out attack on the Good Friday Agreement from a British Tory party in internal disarray. As they elect a new leader in the coming days we need to see a change of direction,” said McDonald.
She called for a “recommitment to the Good Friday Agreement”, which she said would require “real support” for the restoration of the political institutions and “an end to game playing around the Irish protocol and the unilateral actions of the British Government”.
“Voices in Ireland and the US could not be more unified in making it clear to Britain that this needs to happen.
“My message on this trip is about change, opportunity and working together in common cause and that is what I’m committed to delivering,” she said.
This is another high-profile trip for the Sinn Féin leader this summer, who also travelled to Australia in July.
Addressing the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra, McDonald made a direct appeal for Irish people living and working in Australia to return and “be part of a new Ireland that we must build”.
She also said that a referendum on Irish unity would take place within this decade. During her trip to Australia, McDonald also brushed off suggestions that attending a dinner event in Sydney where a ‘Gold Table’, which was on sale for upwards of €2,000, sent the wrong message back home.
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