A study on Rathkeale, claiming the Co Limerick town has its own form of apartheid due to the divide between Travellers and the settled community, has been dismissed by community leaders as “total rubbish”.

The North’s new victims’ commissioners today urged the public to judge them on their work and not the controversial process by which they were appointed.

The North is to have four victims commissioners after the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness dramatically ditched a plan to appoint just one.

The Dalai Lama visited a reconciliation centre in Northern Ireland today at the start of a three-day visit.