The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland Matt Baggott will meet with political leaders at Stormont today to condemn the attack which killed an officer on Saturday.

Hundreds of child abuse victims in the North demanded a full inquiry today into the mistreatment they suffered in institutions run by the Catholic Church and the state.

The Labour Party has suggested that the Conference of the Religious in Ireland be excluded from the social partnership process if it is not prepared to renegotiate the indemnity deal on child abuse.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has called on Catholic religious orders to make a "new gesture of recognition" in relation to the widespread abuse of children in state-owned institutions.

A senior aide to Ireland’s top Catholic churchman today insisted that religious orders must pay more compensation to the victims of abuse in their institutions.

A 'book of solidarity' was opened in Dublin today for the public to record their support for the victims of child abuse.

THERE were hardly more than one or two events since the Famine more cathartic for Ireland than the long-resisted acceptance, a little more than a decade ago, that a great and unchecked evil was active at the centre of our childcare institutions.

A compensation scheme set up to deal with victims of institutional abuse has begun processing claims this morning.