RATIONALISING Ireland’s diplomatic service in Rome could save the taxpayer €2.4 million.
That
sum would be saved if Ireland moved its embassy to the Italian state to
the site of its embassy to the Holy See, and in turn moved its Holy See
ambassador to a base in an existing embassy in a neighbouring country.
Taoiseach
Enda Kenny indicated this week in the wake of the Cloyne report that
the Government might close the Irish Embassy to the Holy See.
First-time
Irish visitors to Rome, on discovering that the Irish state runs two
diplomatic missions in the Eternal City, often express surprise.
However,
the point about the dual missions in Rome (and many other countries
have two embassies here) is that they owe their existence to the Holy
See’s desire to separate itself from the Italian state.
It is the Holy
See which refuses to accept an ambassador who is working out of the same
building as the ambassador to Italy.
To some extent, the question
goes back to the first World War, when there was only one national
embassy in Rome.
When both Austria and Germany, then at war with Italy,
withdrew their diplomatic representation, the Holy See found itself
without German or Austrian interlocutors.
In its finely tuned
Jesuitical thinking, the Holy See objected to ambassadors being
withdrawn because, while Italy was at war with Austria and Germany, the
Holy See certainly was not.
The question is a delicate one given
that the Holy See mounts a zealous guard on the independence of its
100-acre, landlocked sovereign city-state enclave in the heart of the
Eternal City.
Put simply, if you want to show some proper respect and
courtesy to the Holy See, then you had better open up an embassy to the
Holy See.
Countries which opt not to have a separate Vatican
embassy usually end up “tagging on” Holy See responsibilities to their
ambassador in a neighbouring country such as France, Malta or
Switzerland.
The Holy See takes a dim view of this and the
ambassador in question is very much a second-class citizen on the
Vatican diplomatic circuit.
All of this was something the post-war Irish
ambassador to the Holy See, Joseph Walshe, understood all too clearly.
He
inherited an embassy close to the central railway station where
lorries, trams and trolley buses trundled by on a 24-hour basis.
Frustrated with this accommodation, Walshe in 1946 reported to Dublin
that Ireland really should upgrade its quarters, quoting the opinion of
the US special representative, Myron Taylor, who said: “Ireland has a
very special position in the Catholic world and in Rome and should have
an embassy worthy of Ireland.”
Given the green light to find such a
site, Walshe came up with the goods in the shape of the splendid
17th-century Villa Spada on the Gianicolo hill overlooking Rome.
This
is and was a magnificent building which has written some intriguing
chapters in Italian history, given that Garibaldi had used it briefly as
his HQ in 1849 while in more recent years it was home to the Agnelli
(Fiat) family during the second World War.
Bought for $150,000 in
December 1946, the Villa Spada is now worth many millions.
The villa
functions not just as the residence of the Irish ambassador to the Holy
See (that position is currently vacant given the recent retirement of
Noel Fahey) but also houses the mission’s offices.
If it was
decided to reduce the Irish missions in Rome to just one house, then
logic would suggest that the embassy to the Italian state move into the
Villa Spada since it currently rents its Rome embassy.
In answer
to a parliamentary question in November 2009, then minister for foreign
affairs Micheál Martin said in 2008 the two embassies cost €2.4 million
(Italian state) and €900,000 (Holy See). So clearly, more is to be
gained from relocating the embassy to the Italian state.
This
saving, however, would come at a price.
Not only would it strain
relations with the Holy See, but Ireland would be cutting itself off
from one of the world’s best “listening posts”, given that the Vatican
has an unparalleled worldwide network of contacts, intelligence and
information.