The Catholic hierarchy has indicated it is open to commissioning a review of all child abuse cases and its handling in every diocese in the country, as widely demanded after the Murphy report.
The Irish Bishops' Conference said it would consider asking the church-funded National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) to conduct the review. But a spokesman for the bishops said any such mechanism "would have to have the confidence of the state".
The NBSC carried out the Cloyne report which criticised the handling of child abuse cases there and led Barry Andrews, the Minister for Children, to refer the diocese to the Dublin Commission of Investigation.
If the church were to allow the body to carry out a wider review it could appease demands for such an investigation while limiting the cost. It would also mean the state could avoid having to undertake a review of its own, as demanded by some victims.
Andrews said this weekend he would consider co-operating with such a move. "There's been no contact on this, but if such a proposal was made it would be considered," said a spokeswoman for the minister.
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Calls for a full investigation were prompted by publication of the Murphy report which revealed a cover-up of child sexual abuse by priests in the Dublin archdiocese over 30 years.
While the Health Service Executive is due to complete its audit of diocesan and religious orders by December 22, doubts were raised about its effectiveness last year when bishops refused to answer all questions.
An NBSC investigation could cover dioceses and orders in Northern Ireland too, where there have been calls for such a review since the publication last May of the Ryan report on abuse in residential homes.
Queries about the process were referred to the hierarchy by a spokesman for the NBSC, whose chief executive, Ian Elliott, wrote last year's Cloyne report criticising Bishop John Magee's rural Cork diocese.
Under "resource 13" of the Safeguarding document, a review of a diocese would be in private. Three reviewers can interview all adults involved in a complaint and access all files held by the church.
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The Maynooth-based NBSC, though an independent office, was established by the Irish Bishops' Conference, the Conference of Religious of Ireland and the Irish Missionary Union.
After the Murphy report, Micheal Martin, minister for foreign affairs, is due to meet the papal nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, this week over his failure to reply to correspondence from the Dublin Commission. Marie Collins, abused by a priest when a child patient in Crumlin Hospital, wants Martin to review Leanza's position as dean of the diplomatic corp. "Why should the Irish state accord that position of importance to the Vatican with the history we now know about?" she said.
A Dublin Commission spokeswoman said its work on Cloyne abuse by priests from January 1996 to February 2009 should be completed by May or June. But abuse survivors in Cloyne fear publication of the report could be delayed, possibly for years, after a High Court ruling that if information on two priests were published it could jeopardise their prosecution in the criminal courts. Two garda files on the priest known as Father B in the Cloyne report are still with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A canonical trial in Cobh of Father B has been suspended until the report is published. Pearse Mehigan, solicitor for some of the victims, said: "My clients decided that, until they had the benefit of the commission's report and the outcome of the DPP's deliberations, they was no point in participating with the canonical process."