Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is a very important motion. We must all hope that it is also another significant step on the road to justice and truth for the former detainees in the Magdalene laundries. That will be decided by the Minister and her colleagues in government.

I commend the Justice for Magdalenes campaign group for their work. It has given a voice to women who were appallingly treated over decades. They were the forgotten women and girls whose lives meant little or nothing to church and State authorities and whose memory was erased by official Ireland. Until they themselves spoke up through Justice for the Magdalenes, few knew the reality of what they endured.

This is no small scandal. We are talking about the illegal confinement, detention and treatment of thousands of innocent women forced to work in the so-called Magdalene laundries over several decades. These women had nothing. They did not know their rights. They had no one at that time to advocate for them. Like the children abused in other residential institutions, they were surrounded by a wall of silence and ignorance.

I commend to all Deputies the submission from Justice for Magdalenes to the interdepartmental committee in May of this year. I will cite one extract from it:

The reality is that incarceration in the Magdalene laundries was very similar to being sent to prison. The survivors clearly express this view. One recalls, "I felt as if I was being sentenced to a prison. Indeed, at a certain level I was a prisoner". Another says, "Definitely it was a prison. You get paid in a prison. But this was a prison. There was no doubt about it, it was a prison". A third says simply, "These were prisons".

The State resisted calls to establish a prison for young girls similar to the borstal-type institutions for young boys. The availability of the Magdalene laundries, operated by the Catholic religious orders, enabled the State's Judiciary to use them as an alternative to imposing a prison sentence.

With other Deputies in the last Dáil and before, I was proud to support this campaign. In July of last year, I hosted a briefing session here in Leinster House for Deputies and Senators and their support staff on the issue of the confinement, detention and treatment of thousands of innocent women forced to work in the so-called Magdalene laundries over several decades. It was the hard work of Justice for Magdalenes that conclusively disproved the State's claims that the women were in these institutions voluntarily or solely at the behest of their families. That fiction has now been firmly laid to rest, thanks to documents uncovered by Justice for Magdalenes.

In response to the Justice for Magdalenes submission, the UN Committee against Torture called for an independent investigation into the abuse at the laundries and redress for the women held there. It also recommended prosecution and penalties for those who had perpetrated the abuse. It is regrettable that the Government did not see fit to issue an apology with its announcement of the interdepartmental group to investigate the role of the State. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, said it would be more appropriate to wait until the outcome of the investigation. Sadly, some of the survivors will be unable to wait that long and they are all entitled to an apology now. Issuing it would not preclude a further apology when the full extent of the Government's complicity is revealed. Is it too much to expect that the State would say sorry twice?

The reply to a parliamentary question I tabled last year revealed that three of the four orders involved in running the Magdalene laundries had received a total of €87 million from the HSE in the past five years. During the so-called boom years the Sisters of Mercy made €165 million in land sales. The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity earned €61.8 million on the land surrounding the mass grave of Magdalene victims discovered in 1993. The contrast with the funds available to the laundry survivors could not be more stark: they received no pay for their years of forced labour; they are not in receipt of pensions and they were excluded from the residential institutions redress scheme. I reiterate our endorsement for the Justice for Magdalenes group's support for the inclusion of the Bethany Home survivors in the schedule to the residential institutions redress scheme.

I appeal earnestly to the Government to withdraw its amendment. It is not too late to do so. The motion not only has the stated support of all who have signed it and the further stated support of the Fianna Fáil Party, but I believe it also has the support of the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. I call on her to be courageous and stand up and so declare.

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