The 4-day St. Patrick's Festival kicks off in Dublin later today. Overseas visitors are expected to spend €50 million while they are here.
19 Ministers and Junior Ministers as well as the Taoiseach will travel overseas to events in 21 countries. There will also be 150 business events and 30 high-level political meetings at the same time.
Enda Kenny will make the annual visit to the White House in Washington to meet the US President Barack Obama. The Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore will also be in the US capital.
Visible from space this year
As part of the events Ministers Phil Hogan, Pat Rabbitte and Joan Burton will also be America while Minister James Reilly will be in London. Elsewhere Richard Bruton will travel to Germany, Alan Shatter is in Lebanon while Leo Varadkar and Ruairi Quinn are in the Far East.
It is estimated that it is costing €4,500 each to send a Minister abroad for St. Patrick's Day.
Meanwhile St. Patrick's celebrations will be seen from space this year as the Egyptian pyramids go green on March 17th. They will join the list of iconic landmarks around the world that turn emerald for the day.
Tourism Ireland has also announced that the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil has joined its "Global Greening" initiative, along with the Welcome sign in Las Vegas, the home ground of Bayern Munich Football Club in Germany and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
Author David Slattery says there was far more to St. Patrick who was a very interesting man. He spoke to Breakfast here on Newstalk.
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