THE independent senator Nick Xenophon has the secrecy of the Catholic confessional in his sights, calling for mandatory reporting on child abuse to include that disclosed to priests.

Senator Xenophon wants federal and state governments to follow the Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, who has announced the introduction of legislation that would require priests to report abuse revealed during the confidential sacrament of penance, or face up to five years' jail.

Mr Kenny has condemned the ''dysfunction, disconnection and elitism'' of the Vatican in response to a judicial commission report that found allegations of abuse in Ireland involving 19 priests in one diocese were mishandled or withheld from police as late as 2008.

Senator Xenophon, who first called for the legislative change in 2003 while in the South Australian Parliament, said the laws of the land should always trump religious practices.

''No church should be complicit in the cover-up of child abuse just so some paedophile can try and clear their conscience,'' he said.

The retired Sydney bishop Geoffrey Robinson, who helped write the Catholic Church's sex abuse policy in Australia, said it was unlikely targeting the confessional would achieve anything.

''The simple fact is any priest who is guilty of paedophilia has so convinced himself that what he's doing is right that he's not going to confess it,'' he said.

The chairman of the National Council of Priests, Father Ian McGinnity, said he agreed with the Irish Association of Catholic Priests, which has said people would not use the sacrament if confidentiality is compromised.

The confidentiality of confession was tested in Australia in 1989 when Father Mark McGuigan refused to divulge in court whether he had heard the confession of a woman later convicted of manslaughter..

The general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Father Brian Lucas, said the NSW Evidence Act was subsequently strengthened to protect the confidentiality of the confessional, which has been supported by studies by Australian law reform commissions.

A spokesman for the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, said mandatory reporting of child abuse was a matter for the states and territories.