OBAMA PICKS IRISH ‘DREAM TEAM' ADVISORY PANEL

     US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has picked a pair of Washington heavyweights to be on a "dream team" to advice him on Ireland.
     The Illinois-based Democratic candidate's campaign staff have chosen ailing Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman Richard Neal to serve on a newly-established advisory panel on Irish affairs.
     The panel has been quickly formed following a political drama sparked days ago when Obama suggested that he might scrap the position of a US Special envoy to Northern Ireland.
     Obama was lambasted by his Republican rival John McCain for questioning the necessity for the role.
     In all seven politicians with strong links to Ireland will serve on the newly created panel.
     The Obama campaign last week announced the creation of a "high-level advisory panel on Irish issues, comprised of seven great American leaders who have built close ties with America's historic partner and friend."
     The seven have been named as Senators George Mitchell, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Congressmen Joe Crowley and Richard Neal.
     The statement announcing the panel said: "Senator Obama has created this panel because as president he intends to do all the United States can do to help deepen the peace that so many have worked so hard to establish, and to strengthen US-Irish cultural, educational, and trade ties, which are central to the identities of the United States and Ireland."
     Obama said: "I am delighted to be able to call upon a 'dream team' of leaders who cherish the US-Irish bond as I do. I look forward to putting in place policies that will fortify this indispensable relationship."
     Neal and Kennedy are considered key members of the US government for their contribution toward aiding the people and political leaders of Northern Ireland in shaping the peace plan.
     But prominent members of the Irish-American community - many of whom supported the candidacy of Senator Hillary Clinton, in part because of the attention President Bill Clinton gave Northern Ireland during his eight years in the White House - became concerned last week when a statement paper issued by the Obama campaign opened the question of whether a special US envoy to Northern Ireland was still needed 10 years after the peace accord was signed in 1998.
     Ciaran Staunton, the vice president of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, a national organisation based in New York, objected to the campaign's language, saying that it "caused all kinds of uproar within the community," because the role of the US envoy to Northern Ireland is considered vital by people of Irish descent on both sides of the Atlantic."
     Staunton said that the Irish-American vote could be critical to Obama and McCain in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which are working-class swing states with heavy numbers of Irish-American voters.
     Neal, who supported the candidacy of Clinton and chairs the Friends of Ireland in the House of Representatives, said he was "honoured that Senator Barack Obama would ask me to serve on such a distinguished committee."