The Department of Justice has denied speculation that it will delay the release of the report into clerical sex abuse in the Dublin diocese pending the completion of the investigation into the Cloyne diocese. A spokesperson said the Dublin Report, which will be completed by the Commission in less than two weeks, will also be released ''as soon as possible''.
The commission of investigation, chaired by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy was tasked with investigating the Cloyne diocese in January.
Commission member Ita Mangan said that although the Department of Justice are obliged to publish the report, there is no timeframe on when they have to publish it.
''They may take the decision to wait and publish both (Dublin and Cloyne) together''
However, a department spokesperson said: ''the commission are dealing with them separately and so are we ... there is no intention at the moment to delay one until the other is finished.''
The commission's investigation into the diocese of Cloyne in Cork has already been delayed by the fact that it did not recieve the terms of reference from the Government until the end of March.
''We don't know yet the scale of what we are dealing with in Cloyne because we've only started asking for documents. If we take six months, which is what the Government said it would be originally, then we'd have it done by October, but we will certainly have it done by the end of the year,'' Ms Mangan said.
The Dublin Report is expected to reveal that thousands of children were abused by priests of the diocese between 1975 and 2004, a scale which Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has described as ''staggering''.
The commission was established in November 2005 and was due to report on Dublin within 18 months.
However, the Department of Justice has granted it several extensions
RYAN COMMISSION
The Commission investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests and religious in industrial schools is also due to publish its final report by May 20.
The commission, now known as the Ryan commission, was established in 1999 and has been examining allegations of abuse of children in reformatories, industrial schools and orphanages run by 18 Catholic religious congregations in the State.
The commission requested yet another extension in January.
In a statement at the time, it said: ''we are very conscious of the importance and urgency of the report and appreciate the patience shown by participants and by the public''..
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