Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last week we heard the eloquent words of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and many other Members of the House on this matter. However, nobody spoke as powerfully or in as dignified a manner as the women concerned. There is general agreement that nobody will speak as eloquently throughout this debate as the women who suffered so much in the past. Hopefully, the apology will begin to repair some of the damage that was done to these people's lives.

I commend the courage and bravery of the Magdalen women, who have long campaigned for an unreserved apology from the State. Their dedication and hard work finally paid off when the Taoiseach did the right thing, not only for the women but also for us, and apologised on behalf of the State. The downside is that it took so long and that more of the survivors are not with us and could not hear the apology. The big question that arises during this debate, when one steps back from the apology, is why it took the State so long to accept that it played a central and crucial part in supplying the women who were enslaved, starved, ill-treated, abused and treated with cold contempt.

Over two centuries the State used these institutions as places to deal with societal issues of illegitimacy, poverty, disability, so-called immoral behaviour, domestic and youth abuse and youth crime by incarcerating women in these institutions. The religious orders then used the incarceration of these women and girls to create a well supplied, conveyor system of unpaid labourers to work in their commercial and industrial laundries. These women and girls lived and worked in the most brutal conditions imaginable, as is clear from Martin McAleese's report. Why has it taken until 2013 for an apology to be made? This is something that must be addressed at some stage. Was it difficult to uncover the State's involvement in the laundries? Survivors have been speaking about these issues for years, so it would have easy enough for people to find information about them.

Survivors of these cruel institutions spoke of the cold atmosphere of the institutions as well as the rigid and uncompromising regime of physically demanding work and prayer. Most women who were imprisoned in these institutions also spoke of their hurt due to the loss of freedom, the lack of information on when they could leave and the denial of contact with their families. Many have commented that Ireland was a harsh and unforgiving place in the 1920s, 1930, 1940s and later, but let us not forget that the last Magdalen laundry, on Sean McDermott Street with 40 women still in residence, only closed in 1996.

The Magdalen women were excluded by the State from the 2002 residential institutions redress scheme as the State argued that it had no involvement in sending the women to these institutions and the institutions were privately owned. In September 2009, the then Minister for Education, former Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, said the State did not refer individuals to Magdalen laundries, nor was it complicit in referring individuals to them. I recall raising this issue when I was first elected to this House in 2002. Again, we were told there was no evidence. Various education Ministers said the same. Where was the information? What was new about this? Was the evidence hidden from the Government or has it been lying in plain sight for anybody from official Ireland to see or ignore, as they see fit?

It was only the courage and tenacity of the Magdalen survivors that forced the Government's hand on this issue. Through their unfailing spirit, commitment and hard work, these women, with the help of civil society groups, have kept the Magdalen laundries in the public domain. It was the hard work of the women and their advocates which ensured that on 1 June 2011 the UN Committee Against Torture recommended that the State should institute an independent and thorough investigation and, if appropriate, give redress, compensation and rehabilitation to former residents of the Magdalen laundries. Many believe that this was the catalyst for the Government to act on an issue which the State was so vocal in denying.

The McAleese report proves that the State was fundamentally connected to the laundries. There was also a wealth of information already available in the public sphere. The report found that 26% of the women who entered the laundries did so through State intervention or State involvement. The report also confirms that the State oversaw this brutal enslavement and system of unpaid labour as it failed to regulate and inspect the laundries in line with the Factories Act. The State not only failed to regulate and inspect the laundries, it also funded and financially supported them through sweetheart deals with the religious orders. The laundries also received State capitation and other top-up grants. We cannot simply say the laundries operated in different times. As I mentioned, the last laundry only closed in 1996. However, the women's incarceration was also illegal at that time. Their enslavement flew in the face of the League of Nations 1926 Slavery Convention and numerous other international and European legal conventions, to which this State was a signatory. The State's complicity in their enslavement was also contrary to all those conventions.

With regard to redress, the redress mechanism must be open, transparent, accountable and non-adversarial. Other speakers have also said this. It must be put on a statutory footing, have adequate oversight and provide for the right of appeal. The women should receive their unpaid wages and full pension entitlements. Finally, health and education services must be provided for them. This is the least the survivors deserve.

Reference has been made to Bethany Home. The courage of the Magdalen survivors forced the State to rectify the State's abuses, but others have been left behind. That is compounding the hurt of these individuals as they wait for somebody else to investigate and find the evidence that is already available. The women and children who survived similar shocking abuse in Bethany Home are also elderly and have also fought bravely and courageously for an independent inquiry to examine what happened in this residential home, which was open from 1921 to 1972. Between 1922 and 1949, more than 219 children from Bethany Home were buried in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome cemetery. I attended the commemoration that was held there last year. I passed the plot quite regularly for years but it appeared to be a piece of waste ground. I did not know that these children were laid to rest there.

The list of horrendous abuse in Bethany Home is long and disturbing. Can we shy away from this black period in the State's history? In October 1939, for example, after an inspection of Bethany Home it was found that 14 infants had died since the previous inspection of the premises. There were 57 children living in the home at that time. The State refused to act, suppressed the truth and simply ordered the home to stop admitting Catholics. It was an Irish solution to an awful and sad problem.

There is evidence that one child died there in every three-week period between 1935 and 1940. It is scandalous. These shocking revelations were only discovered thanks, again, to the survivors' group and a couple of journalists. It was not the State. They have not only brought into the public domain the vast abuses that occurred in the home; they have also identified the occupants of dozens of unmarked graves.

I remember when the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, made an unreserved apology to all victims and survivors of abuse in residential institutions in 1999. There was a broad welcome for that apology, but 13 years later justice has still not been given to the survivors of those cold and inhumane institutions, of which there were many. It is a sad legacy with regard to this debate that there are other institutions than those to which the Taoiseach's qualified apology relates. It compounds the hurt of people who were in the likes of Bethany Home. Successive Governments have placed survivors on a seesaw of emotions. One minute they feel there will be a breakthrough and the next they are denied justice by another Government. The Magdalens went through that over the years. People hope a new Government will be enlightened by new information. It has gone on too long. I urge the Government to set up an independent investigation into the abuses that occurred in Bethany Home and to include the home in any redress scheme. I urge the Government to ease the hurt and pain of survivors before it is too late.

This is about those people who have been left out of the equation. I urge the Government to use this as a starting point. It should not just be about the cost to the State. It is also about the responsibility of the State to those who had their childhoods destroyed in the institutions they were put in. It should be in the past. The only way to resolve it is by looking outside the narrow confines of the State's involvement and costs. The bigger picture is of society. We must look at all of these institutions if we are to move on. I hope the Government will reflect on that during the course of the debate and consider including the people who have been left out.

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