A total of 69 Irish embassies cost the State more than €76m to run in 2011, but the Vatican embassy, controversially closed as a government money-saving measure, was among the cheapest.

Minister Gilmore claims the €800,000 annual costs of keeping the Vatican Embassy open were not justifiable.

IRELAND will reopen its embassy to the Vatican “within the next year or two if economic conditions allow”, European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton has predicted.

THE US Government has told a Texas court that Pope Benedict XVI should be given immunity from a lawsuit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian.

A Roman Catholic bishop was shot to death near his church in northern Kenya last night, the Vatican Embassy in Nairobi said.