Foreign Pool Report #1 - Background on Irish Taoiseach Miche�l Martin

Hi folks,

I will be your foreign pooler today, covering the visit of the Irish Prime minister Miche�l Martin today. As a reminder, the Irish word used for “leader” is Taoiseach, pronounced “tee-shock”.

Here is a brief background that I hope will be helpful to your coverage of today's events:

Mr. Martin recently returned to the role as Taoiseach. He served in the same capacity between 2020 and 2022, as part of a swap deal between his party Fianna F�il and Fine Gael who got to appoint Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach 2022-2024. Varadkar was the last Irish Taoiseach to visit the White house - last year almost to the date, in this traditional Irish visit to celebrate St Patricks Day and the relationship between the countries.

The last visit of Taoiseach Martin to Washington ended somewhat awkwardly with him isolating in Blair house after catching covid-19. Instead of meeting with then President Biden, the Taoiseach met with the Biden virtually.

Prime minister Martin started his week-long visit in Austin where he attended the SXSW and in a speech highlighted that "thousands and thousands of jobs depend on the economic relationship between the United States and Ireland"

The bilateral is expexted to cover a range of issues including a focus on "focus on economic, political and people-to-people connections", per a Taoiseach statement before the trip.

The Irish economy relies heavily on trade with and investments from the United States. Last year Ireland exported around 78 billion dollars worth of goods to the US - while imports amounted to only 22 billion dollars. The Irish trade surplus towards the US is amongst the largest in the world. In a few weeks Trump is expected to impose reciprocal trade tariffs towards the EU, of which Ireland is a member.

Ireland, with a corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent, has also become home to the European operations of many American companies.

Other topics that the leaders may discuss are the status of undocumented Irish citizens in the United states and also the war in Gaza. Ireland is a fierce critic of Israel's handling of the war in Gaza - and earlier this winter joined the genocide case against Israel brought before the International Court of Justice by South Africa. In 2024 Ireland also recognized the state of Palestine.

The evening Shamrock reception at the White House has been a tradition since Dwight Eisenhower launched it in 1953. Hundreds of guests are expected to attend the event in the East Room. It’s estimated that there are 70 million people worldwide of Irish heritage, of which over 30 million live in the U.S. In 2023, Ireland itself had just over five million inhabitants.

Miche�l Martin was born in Cork, Ireland and spent only a year of his career teaching before becoming a full time politician. He won a seat in the D�il �ireann, the lower house in the Irish parliament in 1989.

Best