An Irish journalist intending to travel today to New York to cover the visit by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, to the United Nations has been refused a visa by the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service.
An effort by the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday to resolve the difficulties of Mr Eoin ╙ Murchu, political correspondent of Radio na Gaeltachta, failed to secure any change of heart by the US authorities.
"I was a member of the Communist Party, but I can't imagine that that could be the problem in this day and age," said Mr ╙ Murchu, who was last in the US in 1972.
When he contacted the US embassy in Dublin seeking a reporter's visa, "they said that my name had come on a computer, but they couldn't say why," he told The Irish Times last night.
"The only thing that I can think of is that I travelled back through Canada the last time and did not hand that little piece of paper that they give you when you arrived," he said. Mr ╙ Murchu had intended to work in New York and Washington for five days.
