Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I also said at that time and throughout the summer that the Government has been conducting a comprehensive review of expenditure across all Departments. As part of this exercise, I reviewed the diplomatic service and the diplomatic missions and I decided to recommend the closure of three resident missions and the Government agreed to this recommendation. These are the missions in the Holy See, in Teheran and in Timor Leste. I regret it is necessary to close any missions and I would hope that in the course of time, as the country recovers, that we will be able to return to the question of whether we should have resident embassies in those locations. However, at this time, it is not the Government's intention to reverse the decision and that decision will stand.

This country will continue to have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. We intend to appoint an ambassador to the Holy See who will be a senior diplomat located in Dublin and who will service the Holy See directly from Dublin. In respect of the other two missions, it is our intention to accredit an ambassador in a neighbouring country to Teheran and to have the ambassador in Singapore service Timor Leste.

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