Taoiseach Micheál Martin has described as regrettable that the Mother and Baby Homes Commission's report was leaked to the Sunday Independent.
Campaigners and opposition politicians have criticised the leaking of the report, saying the publication of sensitive information had caused more pain for survivors.
Speaking on Newstalk, Mr Martin said that the Government response to the report this week would be comprehensive.
The Taoiseach, who will make a State apology later this week, said the "follow through" on the report's recommendations would be "very important".
He said that in the modern era, various Government reports have been leaked, adding that "we will be addressing that issue as well".
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the leak was "very, very disrespectful" and that the women who were waiting for the report should have been the first to see it.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, he said the most important thing is to allow the women time to read and digest the report.
He said the report is a difficult one to read, particularly the individual testimonies, and he thanked those who helped prepare it, particularly historian Catherine Corless.
Speaking on the same programme, Ms Corless said: "The leak has broken trust with Government again."
Call to delay publication of report
Ms Corless called for the publication of the report to be delayed to allow survivors to have extra time to talk to the Government and to give them a chance to look at the report before it is sent to the media.
She said she hoped the publication of the report would be a great relief but said she was still very apprehensive especially after some of the contents of the report were leaked.
She said it had upset a lot of survivors and a lot of people and she thought it had broken a trust again in the Government, because the one thing that all the groups lobbied for was that they would get information first.
Ms Corless said that survivors should be given time and space to prove that they are important, because they have had live all their lives being treated as second class citizens and this was the one chance to put them to the forefront.
She said that while she would welcome an apology from the Taoiseach, would there be an apology from the church and the religious institutions as well.
Ms Corless also said she hoped the full truth of all that had happened in all the homes will come out.
The co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance has expressed concern at the tone of the coverage of the report.
Susan Lohan said that she is concerned that "the Government is about to trivialise the really big human rights issues" that occurred in the homes when it publishes the commission's report this week.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Lohan said that she is "really dismayed at the tone of the article" that was published in the Sunday Independent, which contained leaked details of the report.
A member of the Collaborative Forum on Mother and Baby homes, Ms Lohan raised concerns about the newspaper running a side-bar article about women washing floors in the homes.
"I think the tone of the report that we've been given to believe, is one of describing the conditions in the homes, but of course the big question, the elephant in the room, is why were these homes established in the first place," Ms Lohan said.
"For years, survivors groups have been saying that this is a form of social engineering, that the State and church worked in concert to ensure that women, unmarried mothers and girls, who were deemed to be a moral threat to the tone of the country, that they were to be out of public sight, incarcerated ... to ensure that they would not offend public morality."
Ms Lohan said it was to achieve this aim that the children of these women were taken away and given to those of "good" families.
"I'm not hopeful that these big issues are going to be addressed given that in the leak to the Sunday Independent they haven't led with that kind of content," Ms Lohan said.
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Ms Lohan said that she believed this week's State apology should be "start in a series of apologies".
She said that survivors would require weeks to analyse the content of this report which runs to more than 3,000 pages.
"How can they possibly adjudicate on the sincerity of a State apology, until they have had weeks ... to digest the full report," Ms Lohan said.
While this report covers 18 home and institutions, Ms Lohan said that 180 places were part of the Ireland's "forced adoption system", including State maternity hospitals.
She said that submissions to include them in the scope of the commission's work had not been accepted.
"The State has not even dealt with its full involvement in this awful industry and the massive human rights abuses that came with it," Ms Lohan said.
Ms Lohan said that "to this day" State agencies such as Tusla were still denying adopted people access to their own personal information, including their birth certificates.
She said they "offended adopted people and those born in mother-and-baby homes" by telling them they have to adjudicate the amount of harm acceding to such requests would cause to other individuals.
Ms Lohan accused Tusla of not being "fit for purpose".
Labour Party leader Alan Kelly, has written to the Taoiseach suggesting a postponement of the State apology to survivors of Mother and Baby Homes.
Mr Kelly has said an apology to the victims and survivors is long overdue and needed.
However he has requested that the apology be rescheduled in consultation with support groups to another agreed date to allow victims time to digest the report.
Mr Kelly also said the leaking of some elements of the report was extremely disappointing and insensitive.
Sinn Féin has written to Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman requesting that the leaking of elements of the report be passed on to gardaí.
The party's spokesperson on children Kathleen Funchion said it was a criminal offence to leak such a report.
She said survivors and families are devastated and they have zero confidence in the State ever doing the right thing by them.
Deputy Funchion said the leaking was unacceptable given the sensitivity of the report.
She said survivors have to be at the heart of the process and they must be consulted.
