THE GOVERNMENT has no plans to change the long-standing ceremonial position of the papal nuncio as dean of the Diplomatic Corps, according to Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin.

The Minister said this practice was not the “core” issue, which was the necessity of a substantive response from the Vatican to fundamental questions asked by the Murphy commission. The commission investigated clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin diocese and the hierarchy’s handling of allegations.

The Minister said the longstanding practice, whereby the papal nuncio acts as dean or spokesman for the Diplomatic Corps on formal occasions, was followed by “a majority of EU states” as well as “by Switzerland and many other countries around the world”.

There was also “no sense of demand within the Diplomatic Corps for any change”.

Mr Martin said that at his meeting with papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, he had emphasised the public anger at the “appalling abuse of children” in the commission’s report.

He also explained the need “for the Holy See to provide the fullest possible co-operation with any ongoing or further State investigations into clerical child abuse”.

Mr Martin said the papal nuncio had expressed “his profound shock and dismay at the content of the commission’s report”. Labour foreign affairs spokesman Michael D Higgins said was “rather hard to accept, given that the information in the Murphy report was available to the Vatican”.