O’Neill will ‘judge’ invite from US president to St Patrick’s Day events

By Cate McCurry and Rebecca Black, PA

Northern Ireland’s First Minister said she will make a judgement on an invitation to St Patrick’s Day events in Washington when her office receives the itinerary.

Michelle O’Neill said that Northern Ireland’s relationship with the US administration is “crucially important”, adding that Stormont will engage with President Donald Trump’s office on economic and other matters.

The deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said that while they have not yet received an invitation to the White House, she looks forward to being invited to the annual event.

The invite to the event is usually issued in early February.

Mr Trump previously hosted former taoiseachs Leo Varadkar and Enda Kenny during his tenure from 2017 to 2021.

It is expected that incoming taoiseach Micheál Martin will travel to Washington in March.

Ms O’Neill also said that while she “would never agree with him”, she will work with the US President.

“Look, we all have our own personal views on Donald Trump himself, and particularly his views, and then even his views expressed yesterday in terms of our LGBTQ+ community. I won’t agree with him. I would never agree with him,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

“Where I will engage is in what’s in the best interest, he is the president, he is the people of the America’s choice. He’s the president of the United States.

“So when it comes to our engagement, it will be on our interest on economic growth, it will be on investment. It be on the Irish peace process.

“Beyond that, I doubt I would share too much common ground with Donald Trump.”

Ms Little-Pengelly said: “Firstly, I want to offer my congratulations to President Trump and the team in terms of his inauguration yesterday.

“As we’ve said before, we work with the president of the United States no matter who that person is, we look forward to trying to build a constructive relationship with the President and the team and the vice president as well.

“Of course, he has those links in terms of the Ulster Scots in his family, so we look forward to engaging further.

“We haven’t received those invitations yet to St Patrick’s Day or the events around that, but we will look forward to receiving those.

“Of course, we do want to build that very constructive working relationship with the president.”

Asked about the invitation, Ms O’Neill said: “I think our relationship with successive US administration is always crucially important to our own peace process, so we have to maintain that focus.

“It’s about what’s good for the people that we serve. What’s important for us is about what that engagement means for us in terms of economic investment and yet to be seen in terms of the economic policies of this new president.

“But as Emma says, we still haven’t received an invite, but we’ll judge all that when it comes to it.”

Ms Little-Pengelly added: “Look, he is the democratically elected president of the United States. This is not about what his personal views are about.

“This is about engaging with that particular office.

“We’ve always had that constructive relationship with the president and with the US, and we’ll continue, hopefully, to do so.”