Sir, – Further to the closure of the Irish Embassy in the Vatican, I read recently of the appointment of 11 new ambassadors to the Holy See. They were Trinidad and Tobago, Guinea Bissau, Switzerland, Burundi, Thailand, Pakistan, Mozambique, Kyrgyzstan, Andorra, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso. A number of these are among the less well off countries in the Third World and yet think it important to appoint an ambassador to the Vatican and are economically able to do so.
I think that the fact that we could not appoint an ambassador for economic reasons shows that Ireland is the poorhouse not only of Europe but of the world. – Yours, etc,
