Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to think that but then we fast-forward to 2009 and we have the Minister for Education and Science of the time making a statement in the Dáil that the State had no input into the Magdalen laundries. That has since been disproved and we have had the Magdalen report. Now we are up to the mother and baby homes and again the State is doing its damnedest. My question to Mr. Ó Foghlú is at what point does an institution learn, if ever? We had an apology in 1999. We had a Minister for Education and Science in 2009 saying that the State had no role in the Magdalen laundries. Now, on the mother and baby homes, the Government has been fast out of the trap in saying that there would be no redress. Why? Because this redress scheme was so expensive.