It is doubtful if anyone else could have achieved what Martin McAleese did this week: the completion in 18 months of a 1,000-page report, plus appendices, on State involvement with the Magdalene laundries.
It cost €11,000 in expenses, plus the salaries of seven civil servants – a fraction of the millions spent on each of four statutory reports on abuse since 2005.
The McAleese committee was also dependent entirely on voluntary co-operation, unlike those other inquiries. He won and sustained that co-operation from disparate parties.
There were woman who had been in the laundries; their representative groups; the four religious congregations who ran the laundries; and representatives of six Government departments.
But Martin McAleese has form when it comes to going where others fear to tread.
In February 2003, accompanied only by his driver, he met Jackie McDonald at what was believed to be UDA headquarters in south Belfast. As McDonald commented later, “it was very brave of him in the circumstances”. It was also the beginning of an extraordinary friendship that contributed a key element to peace on this island.
Martin McAleese has done both our states some service.
