OPPOSITION AND Government backbench TDs united in appealing to the Taoiseach to introduce legislation to extend the institutional redress scheme to women in the Magdalene laundries.
Brian Cowen noted their contributions and said “I will refer it to the relevant Ministers and see what the position is. I am not up to date on this matter.”
Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter demanded the legislation be amended to include women who “suffered barbaric cruelty in the Magdalene laundries”.
Residents of the laundries were excluded from the scheme to compensate those abused in residential institutions, as the State denied any involvement in the laundries. Mr Shatter said the Department of Justice “now has irrefutable evidence that this State and the courts colluded in sending young women to what were then known as the Magdalene asylums”. Court records and files showed “the State was directly complicit in many women being placed in these totally inappropriate circumstances”. He said “some of them have never recovered from the manner in which they were treated and their lives have been permanently blighted”.
Government backbencher Tom Kitt (FF, Dublin South) said the Government “should look again at the need for a distinct redress scheme”. Mr Kitt quoted the Minister for Education who said “the State did not refer individuals to Magdalene laundries nor was it complicit in referring individuals to them”.
Mr Kitt said he facilitated a meeting of TDs with Boston professor James Smith who “presented very strong evidence that the young women were routinely referred to various Magdalene asylums via the Irish court system. Gardaí actually returned women who escaped from these laundry institutions even though these women should have been perfectly free to leave.” He accepted “there are financial implications” but “not many women are involved. We claim to cherish all of our children equally and the case is very strong for those who were in the Magdalene laundries.”
Labour deputy leader Joan Burton said this was “one of the ‘hidden Irelands’ that this country needs to come to terms with”. The House had passed an all-party resolution following the Ryan report, and a Labour Party Bill included a provision the age for those included in the scheme be increased to 21, which would deal with a significant number of cases.
Many of the women “are now very elderly, very poor and in greatly reduced circumstances in Ireland, UK and the US”.
Michael Kennedy (FF, Dublin North) supported the extension of the scheme, adding “it is not too much for the State to provide records to siblings of these unfortunate women and to adopted children who do not know their birth mothers. It is not too difficult to remove the word ‘penitent’ from headstones in graveyards all over Dublin and throughout the country.” Joe Costello (Labour, Dublin Central) highlighted the case of 10 women in the Sean McDermott Street Magdalene convent in Dublin for 30-50 years, who “will be moved against their will by January to new accommodation”. He said they were very elderly “and we have done nothing as a nation to deal with them”.
