No dough, no go for Walsh Visas

By Susan Falvella-Garraty and Ray O’Hanlon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. visa scheme aimed at underpinning the North peace process was languishing in limbo this week after Washington seemingly forgot about the money needed to fund them.

And as the Echo went to press, it appeared as if thousands of the temporary Walsh Visas might not make it into Irish hands until next year at the earliest.

It’s only a few months since Rep. Jim Walsh, chairman of the Friends of Ireland in Congress, pulled a rabbit out of the immigration hat.

In a matter of weeks late last year, he and other House members put together a thank-you for a job well done on the Good Friday accord in the form of special visas for young people in the disadvantaged areas of Northern Ireland and six border counties of the Republic.

Despite last-minute glitches, a program to offer employment training along with a temporary visa was voted into law by the House and Senate. All that was needed then was $800,000 to fund the initiative. But somebody forgot to write the check and this week there were growing fears that this year’s initial allocation of 4,000 visas, which were expected to come on stream in July, will not be distributed.

At this juncture, neither the White House nor members of Congress seem especially inclined to push hard for funding.

Walsh said this week that he was disappointed that the Clinton administration had not asked the Office of Management and Budget to fund the visas for this year.

Walsh’s staff pointed out that the administration has asked Congress for supplementary funding of other humanitarian aid projects in other world trouble spots, including $687 million for Central America and Columbia, $6.5 million for East Timor, and more than $1 billion for the Middle East peace plan.

The Walsh visa program was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress last October. It included 12,000 visas, each lasting three years, for successful applicants under 35 years old.

The visas were particularly designed to help train some of the hard-core unemployed, allowing participants sign up with special training programs in the U.S.

"This is a nice visa, it will work, but it’s not up to the administration alone to find the funding for it," an administration official said. He pointed out that any special request would have to be offset in another part of the budget. "We end up robbing Peter to pay Paul, and with the State Department budget so tight, there’s no wiggle room," he said.

The view in Congress was rather different. "We don’t understand why the administration can say they care so much about Ireland and then not come forward and support this," a House staff member said.