An interim report from the Ferns inquiry is expected to be presented to the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, by the end of the month.
A spokeswoman for the inquiry said yesterday that the publication of the report was a matter for the Minister. However, it is understood that it will be published.
The spokeswoman added that the inquiry was not expected to continue beyond the summer.
The inquiry, into how allegations of clerical child sex abuse were handled by the Catholic Church and the State in the diocese of Ferns, began oral hearings in Dublin on September 15th last and has continued since. It is headed by the retired Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Frank Murphy.
The panel also includes Dr Helen Buckley, a senior social studies lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin; and Dr Laraine Joyce, deputy director of the Office for Health Management.
It is hoped the former Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, will give evidence, but it is not clear whether or when he may do so.
It is also hoped the former president of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, Mgr Miceál Ledwith, formerly a Ferns priest, will give evidence.
Four of the then six senior seminarians who complained in 1983/84 about Mgr Ledwith's conduct at Maynooth have given evidence to the inquiry, as has the then senior dean at the college, Father Gerry McGinnity, later moved from the post.
Meanwhile the results of an inquiry set up in June 2002 by the 17 bishop-trustees of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, into the Ledwith affair, have yet to be published.
