The Cloyne Report was the third such report into allegations of abuse in an individual diocese in Ireland.
Its time span - from 1996 to 2009 - was the most recent of all the investigations.
The report claimed that the Vatican response could "only be described
as unsupportive especially in relation to the civil authorities."
It also said that the Vatican's decision to categorise a Framework
Document on child sexual abuse, agreed by the Irish Bishops Conference
in 1996, as "not an official document" effectively gave individual Irish
bishops "the freedom to ignore" the guidelines.
Describing the response of the Diocese itself as "inadequate and
inappropriate", the report found that the then Bishop of Cloyne, Dr
Magee "took little or no active interest" in the management of clerical
child sexual abuse cases until 2008.
The Government reacted swiftly, with the Minister for Justice
announcing plans to introduce legislation to make it a criminal offence
not to report the sexual abuse of a child or vulnerable adult.