Foreign Affairs Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon will be visiting former president Arthur NR Robinson this morning to offer assistance on behalf of the Government for the funeral arrangements for his wife, Patricia Robinson, who died yesterday.

In a telephone interview with the Express yesterday, Gopee-Scoon said protocol dictated that Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his wife, Education Minister Hazel Manning, visit the Robinsons before she did.

’I have arrangements to visit tomorrow morning ... I will meet with him formally to assist with funeral arrangements,’ Gopee-Scoon said.

A release from the Office of the Prime Minister stated that Manning yesterday appointed Gopee-Scoon to be in touch with the Robinsons on behalf of the Government ’in order to offer any assistance in any possible way’ to the grieving family.

’I had spoken to President Robinson and I also spoke to his daughter (on the phone yesterday). They need a bit of space,’ Gopee-Scoon said.

She said being the statesman that he is, Robinson was ’rather strong’ and was ’honoured to know’ that the Mannings had visited him.