The Irish media has hailed Prime Minister Enda Kenny's blistering attack on the Vatican's handling of clerical child abuse, saying his speech ended decades of Dublin's "obeisance" to Rome.

Several newspapers in the mainly Roman Catholic country described Kenny's speech to parliament yesterday as "unprecedented", saying that no Irish premier had ever spoken of the papal state in such terms.

Kenny was reacting to a judicial report on the Church's failures in handling abuse claims against 19 clerics in Cloyne diocese in southern Ireland.

Its inability to properly deal with the affair showed a culture of "dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism" at the Vatican, he said.

"Enda Kenny, with steely eloquence, has ended decades of government obeisance to Rome," said a sketch in the Irish Times.

"Never before has the head of an Irish government spoken of the Vatican in such terms as Enda Kenny did yesterday," it added.

The Times also carried an opinion poll showing Kenny's approval rating had jumped 16 points to 53 percent since its last poll in February -- though the poll was carried out in the days before his speech.

The Examiner newspaper said Kenny's speech made clear the "days of Church dominance over the state were long gone".

And The Irish Independent described it as an "historic condemnation of the Vatican for attempting to cover up the sexual abuse of children".

In an "unprecedented departure from previously diplomatic church-State relations", Kenny directly accused the Catholic hierarchy of downplaying the rape of children to protect its own power and reputation, it said.

Parliament also passed a motion criticising the Vatican, which was passed without a vote being necessary.

The Cloyne report was one of a series of that have rocked predominantly Catholic Ireland, detailing horrific sex abuse of children and attempts by Church leaders to cover them up.

Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore raised the report's concerns with papal ambassador Giuseppe Leanza last week, and Kenny said his government would wait to hear the Vatican's reaction.