A UN panel has condemned the Vatican's handling of child abuse in the Catholic Church.

Representatives of the Holy See answered questions on clerical abuse in front of an international inquiry yesterday.

The Vatican has insisted it had little jurisdiction to sanction priests, saying it was the responsibility of the Irish State.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the Committee that the view of the Vatican was that the Irish State had taken full responsibility for the abuse scandal at the Magdalene Laundries. 

Tom Doyle, a Canon Lawyer based in Washington DC, spoke to Newstalk's Breakfast - starting with the changes he thinks the new Pope will make:

An Irish victim of child abuse has urged the Catholic Church to "admit what they did".

Elizabeth Coppin was just 14 when detained in a Catholic laundry, where nuns shaved her head, gave her a boy's name and held her in solitary confinement, scarring her for life.

She said "I can never forget what happened to me with the state and the Church, the abuse they inflicted on me as a human being, I will take that abuse with me to my grave".

Last year, Taoiseach Enda Kenny branded them "Ireland's shame" and apologised to the hundreds of women who suffered abuse in the institutions.