By Niall O’Dowd

THOMAS Foley is a plain spoken businessman who became ambassador to Ireland in September 2006. He had previously served the Bush administration in Iraq where he spent seven months, ending in March 2004, helping kickstart the economy there.

As such the 53-year-old Connecticut native, who was a major fundraiser for President George W. Bush and a long time friend, is keenly aware that the war is the defining issue of his time in Dublin, and he is not afraid to deal with it head on.

During an interview with the Irish Voice in New York on Tuesday, he refers to a “visceral sense of criticism” of American foreign policy which he has encountered in sections of the Irish media and his efforts to counteract it.

“ Most of my time is spent on public diplomacy, to get beyond conversations on Iraq and issues such as rendition,” he says. “I try to explain what U.S. foreign policy is and how we share goals in common.

“For instance, we agree on the goal to eliminate global terrorism. I speak about the global issues that unite rather than divide us.

“The global issue of famine and disease for instance, is one. I talk about the $15 billion to eliminate HIV AIDS that the U.S. is spending, I discuss global warming and President Bush’s initiative,” which he says is more progressive than what the European Union has proposed.

The other issue Foley has focused on is immigration to the U.S. The best way to offset criticism of the U.S., he believes, is for people to visit or work here and experience the country for themselves, and to find out that the negative stereotypes are so often wrong.

He understands since September 11 that security concerns have become paramount, and that screening for work visas in particular and programs such as J-1 student visas has become far more intrusive. It is now necessary to present yourself at the embassy in Dublin for a visa interview, for instance.

However, Foley is seeking to make it easier to access the visas with the creation of satellite consular centers in Cork, Limerick and Galway.

“We have the technology to do that, to make it more convenient for people to apply. I am convinced getting people to come to America is vitally important,” he said.

On the undocumented Irish in the U.S., Foley believes that comprehensive legislation will pass this year. He says the changes in Congress, which is now controlled by the Democratic Party, are more favorable to passage of such legislation. He added that that the Bush administration is very strongly in favor of passage of a bill this year and will work hard to achieve it.

“The president is giving this a very high priority and the political dynamic in Congress has changed,” he points out. “I am very hopeful there will be a good outcome.”

The North of Ireland is another issue right on Foley’s radar screen. He recently made his first visit North in conjunction with his U.K. counterpart on an economic mission and saw first hand the need for American investment to copper fasten the peace process.

He points out that private and corporate investment is vital for the economic future of the North, where 70% of the workforce are reliant on government work either directly or indirectly. He sees the south obviously as the economic role model.

On the political front he recently attended the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (convention) on policing and says he found it “fascinating” and “very democratic.” He believes that when the time comes at the end of March that a deal will be struck.

He believes the American role of honest broker has played out very well throughout the presidency of President Bush as well as his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

He sees that role primarily as helping bring the two sides together and then let them get on with it, intervening wherever they can be helpful. He says President Bush remains fully engaged in helping find a solution.

As a businessman he understands just how dependent the Celtic tiger has been on inward American investment. He notes the recent job loses at Pfizer and Motorola in Ireland, and the slew of stories that perhaps the Irish economy is slowing down, but he believes the problems at those two companies were not related to the Irish operations per se but to difficulties with new products.

However, he also believes that the phenomenal growth rates of the Irish economy “cannot be sustained” indefinitely, but believes that by “trading up” as the US has repeatedly done to an ever more educationally qualified workforce that Ireland can continue to stay ahead of the curve on job creation.

On a personal note, Foley has been engaged in a quest of his own to identify where his relatives came from.

He knows they came over from Ireland around the 1850s and his quest has taken him back five generations to seek them out. Currently, he has traced it to the 1890s and is drawing close.

No doubt the Famine era emigrants would never have dreamed that one of their own would return as the ambassador from the most powerful nation on earth to their homeland. In that respect Thomas Foley never lets himself forget he is living his American dream for them too.