Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

That embassy was opened in 1929 at a time when we only had three other embassies or delegations, one in Washington in the US, one in London and the other to the League of Nations, so there is a long history of association with the Vatican. Given the fact 90% of our population is Catholic, I thought it was an amazing decision to take.

I do not want to accuse the Minister of having more to do with ideology than anything else, but it is certainly short-sighted. I ask that the Tánaiste come to the House to address this issue - to the best of my knowledge, he has not been in the House at all since the election. I was not surprised that it came from a member of the Labour Party, given it would represent and accord with the views of people in the Labour Party, but I was very surprised with the suppliant attitude of Fine Gael in that regard. I thought it would have been a much more major issue within that party. I am glad the Fianna Fáil party spokesman in the Dáil has put it on the record that, should Fianna Fáil be returned to office in the future, it intends to re-open that embassy.