IRELAND: Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has claimed that the State's plans for officially mourning the Pope go further than most other countries who have declared national days of mourning.
Speaking to journalists yesterday, Mr Ahern denied the Government's designation of Friday as a day of national mourning was in any way disrespectful to the memory of the Pope.
"Well I think we're showing absolute respect...I don't want to get into a political argument about the Pope's death. In actual fact we're having a longer period of official mourning than many other countries."
He said closing schools and allowing public servants time off for services on Friday was going further than many countries.
Officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs had drawn up a list which showed that most other countries, with the exception of Brazil, were having less extensive official mourning.
"For example, in Italy there's three days of national mourning - yesterday, today and tomorrow - but everywhere is open."
He said a national day of mourning in this country "means different thing at different times".
"I've read the file back yesterday, and it was decided 30 years ago not to tie down precisely what that means for obvious reasons."
It is believed that officials from the Taoiseach's protocol division also advised him that a national day of mourning would not be appropriate in the case of the death of a pope, and that it had only been called in the event of a major tragedy of national importance, such as the Stardust fire, Bloody Sunday and the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.
Officials also advised that the national day of mourning for September 11th was the only one where public buildings and businesses closed for the entire day.
Mr Ahern said the measures were similar to what was done for the funerals of Roger Casement, Erskine Childers and Eamon de Valera.
He cited the example of the death of Pope John XXIII, where civil servants were allowed time off to attend services, but said there were no such measures for the funerals of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul I in 1978.
"The issue here is that we are doing more this week than has ever been done previously, and that is appropriate. I think it's a little bit sad that people want to say it's the other way round and get hung up about a national day."