Reply #1: Irish Ambassador mourns numbers slump:

[emad]

As he embarked on a tour of universities and colleges last week, James Kenny, the US Ambassador, said that recapturing Ireland’s youth was “hugely important for us” and admitted that a wave of anti-Americanism was stopping many students visiting the US.

Referring to a slump in applications for the J1 summer visa programme, from 6,500 in 2003 to 2,800 last year, Mr Kenny said: “We were pretty disappointed. What we hope to do is get the numbers back up to where they were previously to 2004. I hope that we can make it easier and more welcoming for people.”

Until recently, a summer in the US was a rite of passage for Irish students, with more than 150,000 taking advantage of the J1 scheme since it was established in 1966.

Under the scheme anybody at university in the Republic and Northern Ireland can spend up to four months living and working in the US. For years the number of visas was capped at several hundred but, in the 1990s, thousands travelled, including members of the Thrills, the pop band who wrote their debut album So Much for the City during a summer in San Diego.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1460612,00.html