President Clinton was speaking at a $$4,500-a-head fund-raiser for his wife's presidential campaign at the New York home of actor Gabriel Byrne.

After inviting questions from the crowd, one member of the audience introduced himself as Malachy McAllister, who was jailed in the early 1980s for the attempted murder of an RUC officer.

McAllister, who has been fighting for years to stop his deportation back to Northern Ireland, asked what another Clinton presidency could do for his campaign.

However, President Clinton side-stepped the question, talking off the need to overcome sectarian divides and speaking at length about the current situation in Rwanda.

"Is there anyone here from Rwanda?" he asked, to laughter from the almost exclusively Irish-American audience.

However, President Clinton suggested that Mr McAllister take his case to Senator Clinton's office.

Asked by a younger member of the audience what his wife's presidency could do for young people, President Clinton said that America's first female president would make the fight against global warming a priority, which would affect young people around the world more than anyone else.

Senator Hillary Clinton was not at the event as she had to fly to South Carolina for the first debate among the eight Democratic presidential candidates.

Byrne welcomed President Clinton to his four-storey Brownstone home in an affluent area of Brooklyn.

The event was expected to earn over $$200,000 for Senator Clinton's presidential campaign.

President Clinton reminisced about his time in Northern Ireland while meeting the 200 guests.