Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this motion to get justice for the Magdelenes. The scale of what was carried out in the Magdelene laundries is best summed up in the Justice for Magdelenes submission to the UN Committee Against Torture, which states:

the Magdalene Laundries abuse ... involved the unlawful deprivation of liberty of adult women and girls over extended periods, it involved school-age girls being deprived of an education and it involved both women and girls being subjected to forced labour and servitude by private actors.

It is even more galling when these private actors went under the names of Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of Charity. There certainly was no mercy or charity involved in what the women in the Magdelene laundries went through.

This is an important motion and it is a pity that the Government has seen fit to amend it. The motion has been prepared with the full support of Justice for Magdelenes and it contains three simple recommendations. The first is that a helpline would be established. This is simply because many of the Magdelenes would still be suffering and would need ongoing support. A helpline would be an easy point of access for many of those who still have not come forward and campaigned but who would still be suffering in private, and it would be something of which they could avail and use easily.

Access to pensions, another of the recommendations, is vitally important. It would recognise that these women were forced to work and did a service on behalf of the State. It would be simple for the Government to recognise their pension rights and credit them with pension rights for the slave labour that they were forced to carry out.

An apology, redress and restorative justice - all three - are simple demands and something that no Government should have difficulty in dealing with. It would not add significant cost to the State to do this but it would be easy and positive and would go a long way to restoring the Magdelenes' faith in the State and in the State's ability to support them.

I also support the calls for the Bethany Home survivors to be included as well and redress to be provided for them because that is another shame on society that has been going on far too long.

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