[matter omitted]
Mr. Undén¹ said that he hoped that when the time came for the next General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation Ireland would have been admitted as a member. Sweden had, he pointed out, proposed that all outstanding applications for membership should be granted, in order to come as near as possible to the idea of universality. I told him that after the blocking of our application by the Soviet Union in 1946, some people had suggested that we should withdraw our application altogether, and many people consider that the Soviet veto was, in effect, a compliment to us. Our Government had, however, deemed it best to leave our application as it was. We never expected to gain any special advantages from membership of the United Nations Organisation but we are always prepared to do our part in international cooperation. In organisations such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the Food and Agricultural Organisation we are taking a leading part and have given every evidence of our wish to work along with the other nations of the world. Our delegates to the Marshall Plan Conference in Paris had worked hard to secure the success of the Conference, and the Taoiseach had attended the final session. The Secretary of our Department of External Affairs was one of those subsequently deputed by the Conference to proceed to Washington for discussions with the United States authorities. We would continue to give the maximum cooperation in all world organisations of which we are a member.