Campaigners have called on the Government to start excavations at other mother and baby home sites after Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said she is in favour of such a move.

Cardinal Sean Brady’s assistant and coadjutor in the diocese of Armagh has said the religious orders who ran Magdalene laundries need to “consider their responsibilities in a compassionate manner”.

A campaigning lawyer has described part of the report into the Magdalene Laundries as a hotchpotch of guesses and omissions presented as scholarly work.