Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I also read the Justice for Magdalenes report over the weekend and upsetting as it is, it should be made compulsory reading for all citizens. It is a register of the crimes committed by this State against women. After reading the report, there can be no doubt that this was a deliberate social policy which was summed up in the report of the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor, which dealt with how the State handled births outside marriage. A woman could be detained in a mother and baby home for a year if she had one child outside marriage. If she had two children, she could be detained for two years and if she had any more, she could be detained for as long as the State deemed necessary. The object was clearly defined thus: "...to regulate control according to individual requirements, or in the more degraded cases to segregate those who have become sources of evil, danger, and expense to the community." How more horrendous could any sentence be?

I read of one case where a girl was raped by her brother. He was imprisoned for six years and she got life in a Magdalene laundry. I also read of another woman, buried in Limerick, who spent 74 years in a laundry. The report is a litany of degradation, imprisonment, violations of human rights and forced labour. The evidence is irrefutable in this report. The State was fully complicit in all of these activities through the capitation fees it paid on behalf of those who were on probation and sent to laundries. It was complicit in the transferring of young women to the laundries from industrial schools. There was no monitoring of the conditions in the laundries and the State fought against the application of the Factories Act, when it was introduced, to the laundries. When the Act was applied, the State carried out no enforcement. The State also interacted in the drawing up of the lucrative commercial contracts between the laundries and the Army, prison services and so forth.

It is not good enough for the Government to say, "wait, we will deal with it this year". These people have already waited a lifetime. Many of them cannot wait any more. The UN Commission on Torture said over three months ago that this should have been dealt with. This is an ageing population. They deserve an apology now. They deserve redress now. I support the suggestion that these laundries were commercial enterprises and the reckonable service should be pensionable. The money should be recovered in unpaid PAYE and PRSI contributions to foot the bill. There should be no more excuses or delays. This matter should be dealt with now.

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