The Government has said it is "not confident" it will be able to recoup from the church half the cost of the State's €1.36 billion compensation bill to settle clerical child sex abuse claims.

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn said today he would shortly re-enter formal negotiations with the religious orders to review how they could meet the Government's target of paying half the liability.

Asked if he was confident the 16 religious orders named in the Ryan Report on clerical child sex abuse would be able to pay the €680 million liability, Mr Quinn said he wasn't.

"I'm not confident because I simply don't know what the situation is at the present time and I'm not in a situation to make any forecast as to what possible contribution there might be," he said.

"Negotiations were effectively suspended for the last year-and-a-half or so in a formal sense, although there has been ongoing contact. But it has been my intention to resume negotiations as soon as possible," said Mr Quinn.

Since the Ryan Report was published in May 2009 the religious orders, who ran the residential institutions were children suffered abuse, have agreed to pay €476 million in compensation.

Last April the Department of Education confirmed that it was to ask the congregations to hand over title to property worth €200 million to bring their share of the compensation to half of the total liability.

Mr Quinn is due to make an announcement tomorrow on proposals made by the religious congregations since April to hand over property, which includes schools and other educational establishments, will meet the shortfall.

Mr Quinn said today the cost of the redress board should be borne 50/50 by the State and the religious congregations.

"I'm going to enter into these discussions with an open mind. This is about recouping for the distressed Irish taxpayer a vast amount of money. The alternative is we have to reduce further expenditure and introduce savings in areas that we otherwise would not want to do," he said.