CLAIMS THAT the Vatican embassy was not originally included in a list of diplomatic missions recommended for closure have been strongly denied by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore
He rejected reports that the embassies in Tehran and Timor-Leste were recommended for closure as part of last summer’s comprehensive review of expenditure in his department and that the Vatican was added later.
“The two embassies that were being looked at at that stage in the comprehensive spending review were the Holy See and Timor-Leste,” he said. “We had been looking at the embassy network since the Government was formed and there were a range of options . . . The final decision on the embassies to be recommended to Government for closure was a decision that I made, but the Holy See was always on the department’s own consideration. I know there was some speculation at the weekend that it wasn’t and that I added it – that’s not the case. The embassy to the Holy See was under consideration for some time.”
Speaking to reporters after the launch of the action plan on jobs, Mr Gilmore said: “Ideally, I would have liked not to have closed any mission. The closure of any embassy is sensitive and that’s why we handled it sensitively.”
On the day the Government made the decision to close the Vatican embassy, he spoke directly to Cardinal Seán Brady and Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.
The embassy decisions had also been communicated separately to Tehran, Timor-Leste and the Vatican.
“In all three cases, we made it clear that the closure of the embassy did not diminish our diplomatic relations with these states.”
“The decision is not going to be reversed,” he said. “When the economic circumstances improve, I hope to be in a position to be opening and reopening embassies. And in the case of the Vatican, if the Vatican itself relaxes the requirement that we have to have two separate buildings [for the embassies to Italy and the Vatican], we can look at that aspect of it again.”
He strongly denied that the Vatican embassy closure was part of a “secular agenda” being implemented by the Labour Party.
Asked if there were party tensions in the Coalition about it, he said: “It was a collective Government decision so there is no issue of me being at odds with the Taoiseach, or Labour being at odds with Fine Gael on this.”
Former secretary general at the Department of Foreign Affairs Seán Donlon has criticised the decision to close the embassy.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland , he said the State did not close its embassy in London at any time during the Troubles even when diplomatic relations with Britain soured in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday.
“At times of difficult relationships . . that is not the time to reduce the level of representation; that, in fact, is a time when diplomacy comes into its own,” he said.