A Facebook campaign to expel the Pope’s representative out of Ireland in the wake of the Cloyne report is already a huge success.

Over 5,000 people have joined the online call for the Irish government to take serious action against the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza.

Fine Gael chairman Charlie Flanagan called on the government to take such action in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the report into child abuse in the Cork diocese of Cloyne.

“The Vatican has broken the law in Ireland. If any other country conspired with Irish citizens to break the law here, their ambassador would be expelled,” said deputy Flanagan.

“The same standards should be applied to the Papal Nuncio who is the Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland. He should be expelled.”

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Flanagan’s call has been taken up by the Facebook campaign which condemns the Church’s failure to report child abuse allegations in Cloyne to the civil authorities.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has also labeled the Vatican a disgrace over the failures in Cloyne.

Archbishop Leanza, who met Kenny’s deputy Eamon Gilmore last week, is to bring a copy of the damning Cloyne report to the Holy See.

But Facebook campaigners want him expelled as a punishment for the many failures of the clergy in Cloyne.

The campaign’s Facebook page states: “If we are to take the reports’ findings seriously, we must expel the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza.

“We urge you to write to ministers and TDs saying a message must be sent in the clearest of ways. The Papal Nuncio past and present made deliberate decisions to stonewall our country’s efforts to find the truth about child sex abuse by the Catholic Church and to prevent its recurrence.

“He did so in his official capacity as the ambassador of a foreign state, the Vatican. The Irish State must now expel the Papal Nuncio.”