Extract from a letter from Seán Nunan to Thomas J. Kiernan (Canberra)
(Secret) (Copy)

With reference to our minutes of the 28th and 30th October,¹ I am enclosing herewith the final version of the aide-mémoire which you should deliver to the Australian Department of External Affairs.

You will notice that the aide-mémoire has been drafted to keep the record straight from our point of view and also to emphasize that the Government are not prepared to depart from the requirement of having Letters of Credence addressed to the President in his constitutional Title.

It has been suggested to the Minister that a Lettre de Cabinet would do provided it is addressed in the bottom left-hand corner as follows (in three lines):-

It was pointed out in support of this suggestion that a Lettre de Cabinet would be an acceptable alternative to a Lettre de Chancellerie for the accredition of a representative from Australia; that it would not include in the text any mention of the Republic of Ireland; and that if instead of addressing it to ‘President Seán T. O Ceallaigh, President’s Palace, Dublin, Ireland’, the Australians would address it in Irish, as set out above, our requirement regarding the use of the constitutional Title of the President would be met.

The Minister was not inclined to make any further suggestions to the Australian authorities either formally or informally because we had already done so more than once without success and he could not feel sure that any further suggestion from our side would be likely to be accepted at this stage.

If, however, you could find a way of suggesting to the Australians that they should put forward the idea outlined above, I have little doubt that the Minister would accept it. It occurs to us that you might find Senator O’Sullivan willing to co-operate making it seem that you are acting on your own initiative.

[matter omitted]

If the suggestion were put forward by the Australians and accepted by the Minister (as I have no doubt it would be) you could inform the Australian authorities that there would be no need for the publication of the aides-mémoire.

[matter omitted]