Hands up if you're old and Irish

If you are Irish and about to turn 100, stand by for a message from Irish President Mary McAleese and NZ$4700 so you can throw a party.

Details of the Centenarians Bounty were outlined by Mrs McAleese in Wellington yesterday on the first day of her week-long state visit.

"Our view is that if you get to 100 you're entitled to a good old Irish party, so they get a nice letter from me and a nice cheque.

"It's just our way of telling them this Ireland, that is now doing so well and so prosperous, understands that many people who left our country - who would have preferred to stay but weren't able because they had to make a living for themselves - that we haven't forgotten them and that we remember how much we owe them."

There were 531 people aged 100 or older in New Zealand at the 2006 census though there was no breakdown for Irish centenarians living here.

Mrs McAleese said Ireland was also contributing to a welfare fund for Irish people resident in New Zealand, and was also offering pensions to those who worked in Ireland before 1953.

President McAleese was officially welcomed at Government House yesterday. She had talks with Prime Minister Helen Clark and attended a state luncheon at the Beehive.

She told The Dominion Post the purpose of the visit was to reaffirm, broaden and deepen the strong ties that many New Zealanders had with Ireland. "We are kith and kin to one another - about one-fifth of the New Zealand population have very strong Irish connections."

New Zealand and Ireland, which also has a population of about four million, had a "phenomenally good relationship". The two espoused the same values, worked together in the United Nations and took similar views on global issues like disarmament, democracy and human rights, Mrs McAleese said. The new Ireland - a prosperous nation in the European Union - had connections that could be of value to New Zealand.

Now part-way through her second seven-year term as president, she said she represented the soul and character of Ireland. Unlike the United States president, she does not have a role in Ireland's day-to-day politics, but still holds an important constitutional and symbolic role as head of state.

- © Fairfax NZ News