It comes after the Jesuit Order named a further 15 deceased Jesuits who have been the subject of child sexual abuse complaints, eight of whom were already the subject of complaint during their lifetimes.
The other seven first became the subject of complaint after their deaths.
All allegations in these cases have been reported to gardaí and statutory authorities.
Deirdre Kenny welcomed the publication of the report from the Jesuits Order yesterday, but said past experience has proven that organisations have protected themselves.
"This information, being drip fed for decades, is not particularly helpful but I've no doubt - we've known from the scoping inquiry - there are thousands of people out there," she said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Kenny said the move is a "step in the right direction".
"Naming the 15 individuals and acknowledging past failures is certainly a step in the right direction, and it goes some way to the transparency that survivors deserve," she said.
However, she added that the decades of silence to date will have compounded the harm to survivors of abuse.
"As a society, and certainly in institutions like religious institutions, we know from experience that silence compounds that feeling of responsibility and shame that these children carry into their adulthood."
She said the Jesuit Order has proven in the past to be less adversarial than many other religious congregations and that the Order is proactive in making the compensation process easier for survivors.
She added that trying to break down a case to a monetary value can be insulting to survivors.
However, she said it is helpful if people can see that there is a genuine attempt to acknowledge the harm and that they can see that a religious congregation has learned from what has happened in the past.
Yesterday, Jesuit Provincial Fr Shane Daly SJ said the order wanted to hear from any person who was harmed by any Jesuit, and urged them to contact the Jesuit Safeguarding Office to make disclosures.
A journalist who was one of the first to write about child sexual abuse complaints against the Jesuit Order has given a cautious welcome to the publication of the report but said the announcement was "totally incomplete".
Sunday Times Ireland journalist and columnist Tom Doorley said 44 members of the Jesuit Order who were credibly accused of child sexual abuse "need to be named".
"It is numerically incomplete and we have no explanation as to why it is incomplete," he told Morning Ireland.
"It's been a very long time coming. I and others have been pressing for this for quite some time. Since 1940, my understanding is that 44 Jesuits were credibly accused of child sexual abuse."