Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to begin by adding to the comments of other Deputies in expressing my personal revulsion and horror at the record of church and State when it comes to the unimaginable cruelty delivered onto thousands of women and girls by these institutions, and I thank Deputy MacDonald and Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion.

The stories of the barbaric, sadistic abuse handed out to these prisoners of the ten Magdalene asylums have been bravely brought to light by the determination and perseverance of the group committed to obtaining justice, and it is right that we acknowledge its efforts. The first duty we as legislators owe survivors is to acknowledge openly and loudly the full extent of the human suffering that went on in these institutions.

The many survivor accounts reveal this. The basic lack of humanity and compassion evident was made all the more insufferable in that these institutions were set up out of some perverted notion of Christian, Catholic sympathy and charity, that these women must be saved from themselves and from their imagined sins. Beneath that hypocritical piety, there is evidence through the survivor accounts of what can only be described as a barbaric programme of dehumanisation through enforced manual labour, physical abuse and psychological isolation.

It falls on us in this Parliament, both Government and Opposition, to seek whatever means are at our disposal to provide the justice and redress that has remained out of reach of these women and it is good to see that the interdepartmental committee, under Senator McAleese, is advancing this process. We do not know the full extent of the State's culpability - we must wait for the committee to report on that - but we know, through the work of Ms Mary Raftery and others, that several State agencies used the services of the Magdalene laundries. I suspect that we have scarcely begun to get to grips with the State's total responsibility to the survivors, and we have some way to go.

Tonight there will be a "Prime Time" programme dealing with the Magdelene laundries. No doubt that will produce an emotional response and a sense of revulsion, but it is not enough. We must do what is practical. We must do what is demanded by the victims themselves. The pension component of it is incredibly important to these victims to acknowledge what they went through. That particular aspect is something that can be practically done and I want to support that in particular.

See this speech in context