The Taoiseach has said he never expected so many cases to come before the Laffoy Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
Mr Ahern today acknowledged the "frustrations" of the commission, following the resignation of its chairwoman, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy earlier this week. It is understood the judge believed a Government review of how the Commission is operating would not be completed for at least a year.
Speaking on RTE Radio 1's News at One, Mr Ahern said: "I never thought we'd have so many cases. Nobody had any idea, there's 1,700 cases and there could be more."
Mr Ahern said one of the three units set up by the legislation establishing the Laffoy Commission, the compensation unit, was not working well.
He said the reason the Minister for Education and the Attorney General were working on the review was to "try to find away that we could deal with this efficiently, effectively and speedily".
"Quite frankly, we haven't succeeded in doing this. Now I know this is creating great annoyance to the Laffoy Commission and I know there's been quite a lot of tensions and all of that, but what we've been trying to do is just find a way of dealing with these cases," he said."I have to say, frankly, I never thought we were going to get in 1,700 trials or maybe even more than that...I quite frankly thought this would be finished in a few years," Mr Ahern said.
The Taoiseach pointed to the challenge by the Christian Brothers in relation to the tribunal and said the Government was still awaiting the High Court judgment in this case. He said the case could ultimately go to the Supreme Court and the Government had to await the outcome of it.
Stating that some of the alleged victims were bringing their cases before the commission in "a very strong and tough way", Mr Ahern said it was their Constitutional right to do this, but the Government now had to find a way of dealing with the number of cases.
"While it's creating obvious frustrations for the Laffoy Commission, they are not happy and, I can assure you, neither am I."
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said the Taoiseach was still refusing to accept the Government's failings in relation to the breakdown of the Laffoy Commission.
He said the Government had struck and "extremely poor deal" on compensation payments with the religious orders at the last minute. It had also failed to provide the Laffoy Commission with documentation in a timely manner and had "clearly mishandled" the review of the workings of the Commission, resulting in the resignation of Ms Justice Laffoy.
Mr Kenny said the Government was refusing to "shed any light" on the problems faced by the Commission by publishing Ms Justice Laffoy's resignation letter.
The Aislinn group, representing victims of child abuse, said the Commission would collapse again unless it was provided with two more judges and extra resources.
The head of the group, former Goldenbridge orphanage resident Ms Christine Buckley, sent a letter to Ms Justice Mary Laffoy urging her to reconsider her decision to resign if the Government agrees to support her fully.