A WEXFORD councillor has said he is 'flabbergasted' by the government's decision to close the Irish embassy in the Vatican.
'There's lots of things that the church has done wrong, but an awful lot of Irish people still have a great affinity with their religion,' said Independent councillor Padge Reck.
'It's important to retain the links between ourselves and the Vatican. We're either Catholic or we're not,' said Cllr Reck.
'A huge amount of Irish people – and they would be the more vulnerable people too in terms of age and illnesses – visit the Vatican every year and it's very important that they have somewhere to go if they run into difficulty there,' he said.
'I'm flabbergasted that the government would close down the embassy in the Vatican. The agnostic rump of the Labour Party have decided to decimate the religion I stand for,' claimed Cllr Reck, adding that he has been contacted by a number of people in Wexford who are annoyed with the government's decision.
'This is because there was a row between the government and the Pope,' said Cllr Reck, who does not accept Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore's statement that the decision to close the embassy was taken on cost grounds and had nothing to do with difficulties over the Cloyne report into clerical child sex abuse.