Government demands meeting with Papal Nuncio

Papal nuncio Archbishop Guiseppe Leanza has been asked to attend a meeting with the Foreign Affairs minister Micheál Martin at Iveagh house next week.

The Vatican has been strongly criticised in many quarters for a lack of response to last week's report into the handling of abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

A short statement from the Minister's office last night said he was being called to the meeting to discuss "issues surrounding" the commission of inquiry's report.

Archbishop Leanza - who was appointed by Pope Benedict to represent the interests of the Holy See in Ireland - failed to respond to a number of letters from the Murphy inquiry, which asked him to forward all documents not supplied by the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.

However its been revealed that the Papal nuncio called of his own volition to meeting with the secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs last week. Details of what happened are not yet known.