The director of the Irish Bishops' Conference Child Protection Office said yesterday he would welcome "some form of inquiry" into the handling of cases of child sexual abuse by the authorities.
Mr Paul Bailey said if lessons were to be learnt from an inquiry, not alone into the actions of the church but also into all agencies with a statutory responsibility for child protection, he would welcome it.
He said he could not comment specifically on the resignation of the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, or on his handling of allegations of child sex abuse in Wexford.
Mr Bailey was appointed last July to advise bishops on best practice in the area of child protection in all dioceses, North and South. However, he stressed that he did not have control over whether or not his advice was followed.
The former president of the Irish Association of Care Workers said he was hoping to put in place a structure to ensure anyone coming forward with an allegation of abuse in the future would have complete confidence in the system in their diocese to deal with it.
There were child protection delegates in each diocese, he said, who were appointed following the publication by the church in January 1996 of guidelines for the reporting and handling of sex abuse allegations. Under the guidelines any complaint in relation to child abuse made to a child protection delegate must immediately be reported to the civil authorities.
He confirmed that a number of cases had been "properly dealt with and properly referred to the authorities by delegates" since the guidelines had been introduced but he was unable to say how many.
Mr Bailey confirmed he had initiated a review of the 1996 guidelines, which was due for completion early next year. "We will extend them to include all church workers including laity and intend to expand the definitions of abuse to include physical and emotional abuse in addition to child sexual abuse," he said.
Also yesterday, a former chairman of the South Eastern Health Board (SEHB) called for a tribunal of inquiry to immediately investigate the handling of allegations of clerical child sex abuse in the south-east by the Garda and SEHB during the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr Gary O'Halloran said he was "fiercely concerned" the resignation of Dr Comiskey "might be used by people with other agendas to evade their responsibility in facing up to child sexual abuse".
A spokeswoman for the chief executive of the health board, Mr John Cooney, said that every time Mr O'Halloran was asked to furnish the board with details of his allegations he had not done so.