we have set up the follows checkout configuration:
login,cart,confirm,end
the confirm page is a blank page with a next button. Not mention of confirmation. We had a look at the confirm.php file and this is completely empty. Is this right?
Yes that's normal.
The confirm view is just a logical view which check that everything is ok.
Normally user wanting a confirmation step will use something like that:
....,confirm_cart_status,end