Department: Vatican embassy may re-open within two years
Revealing the details yesterday, the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs said the Vatican were keen to keep publicity around the development out of the public domain.
Secretary general David Cooney confirmed that a smaller Vatican embassy may be allowed on the same site as the embassy to Italy in Rome.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore was criticised in recent months after closing the embassy to the Vatican for cost-saving reasons.
The closure saves €845,000 in a full year, which includes rent of €445,000 to house the embassy to Italy in Rome.
Instead, the mission to Italy has moved into the Villa Spada, which housed the embassy to the Vatican until recently.
Mr Cooney said a postal address for a presence to the Vatican was currently being used at the Villa Spada complex, site of the new embassy to Italy. The complex fronts onto three separate roads, where different addresses can be used.
However, he went further when quizzed by TDs at the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee: “I’m discussing with them if, down the road, and if, as the Tánaiste has said, economic conditions improve, that we could re-open [it] on a more cost-effective basis.”
Vatican officials were against allowing two embassies in one building and were hesitant about allowing exceptions, he said.
He said the Villa Spada was the department’s biggest embassy building in its €148m property portfolio.
He said the Vatican did not want any negotiations going public, and said only that the re-opening the embassy could be revisited in a “year or two”.
It was preferable to have a mission in the Vatican when it came to issues such as education and matters involving sex abuse cases, Mr Cooney told Fine Gael TD Eoin Murphy: “But I had to do it [make cuts] and look at it with a very business-like eye.”
