Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I can only imagine the fear, the isolation, the helplessness and, perhaps for many, the final submission felt by those women and girls incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries. While I can only imagine the nightmare, I know there are many who live with the reality. I am also conscious as we debate this motion that there are women and their families watching this debate for whom the Magdalene laundries is not a horror story but an actual horror that visited itself upon them directly, a horror with ongoing consequences.

I find it unacceptable the Minister suggests the motion put down by Sinn Féin is premature. These sites of horror operated with the connivance and under the nose of the State from 1922 until 1996. Let no one pretend we did not know. We knew but we chose to look away. The motion tabled by Sinn Féin, with the support of our Independent colleagues and Fianna Fáil, relies entirely on facts established and aired in the public arena. There is no conjecture in it. It is a fact that committal to and residence in the laundries was not voluntary. It is a fact the State interacted actively with the laundries. It is a fact these laundries, although private institutions, enjoyed considerable financial State support while women and girls were enslaved to work without pay. It is a fact the State deliberately failed to inspect these laundries. The trauma and the stigma endured by detainees which lives with them to this day is also a fact. These are women who are aged and many of whom are ill.

While few Members have sought to dispute these facts, I am sorry the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, did so last evening. In defending the Government's position, she cited the McAleese committee as the Minister of State, Deputy McGinley, just did. She said the committee would produce what she called the first comprehensive and objective insight into the laundries. The Minister deliberately misrepresented the committee's remit. It is tasked with establishing the extent of State involvement in these laundries, not the fact. The Minister spoke as if there were no established facts, no survivors' testimonies, or no documented evidence of abuse or State interaction. Shame on her.

There was worse to come. She also stated, "As far as I am aware, allegations of abuse in Magdalene laundries have never been the subject of scrutiny by the courts, a commission of investigation or tribunal of inquiry, so the facts remain undetermined." The hand-wringing Minister cast a doubt over the validity of survivors' testimonies because the women did not go to court. She knows right well why there were no court cases. She is fully aware of the reasons women who were brutalised, stigmatised and fearful did not go to the courts. She is more than aware why cases could not now be taken because the Statute of Limitations prevents a survivor, even if she were so minded, from going to the courts now. The Minister knew all of this but came into the Chamber last evening to deliver the Government's line without skipping a beat. With all due respect to the Minister of State across the floor now, Deputy McGinley, he did the same this evening. He claimed the women have been listened to. Have they? Has the story really been listened to?

The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, advised us not to leap to conclusions. I want to draw some conclusions about the behaviour of the State and the Government in this matter. In May 2011 the Government, represented by the then Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality, appeared before the UN committee against torture. Its approach was disgraceful, defensive and stonewalling while its submission was misleading or, at the very least, incomplete. The State claimed the laundries were private institutions, voluntarily occupied and outside the remit of State responsibility, bar one exception. The Government was giving purchase to a lie that tried to convince us that nothing was known about the enslavement and brutality visited on women in these institutions. That impression was a lie then and is a lie now.

The Government tells us it does not want to pre-empt the McAleese committee. The motion does not ask it to do that. Instead, it recognises and welcomes the work of Senator McAleese but states clearly justice for the women does not need to be put on hold. In fact, the motion insists justice for the women cannot and will not be put on hold. The McAleese committee can proceed with its work but it does not stop the State from acknowledging the survivors, apologising to them and making arrangements for the basic support services they need now.

Those on the Government backbenches will probably choose the path of least resistance and follow their Whips to vote against this motion. That is their prerogative. However, in making that choice, they will be co-opted into the defensive denial mode of the Government.

In making that choice they will allow this debate to draw to a conclusion with no Government acknowledgement of the damage done to the women or of the failures of the State. They will leave these women yet again with no apology, no commitment to pension rights, no redress or the small comfort of knowing that this Dáil will ensure the provision of supports needed by these women here and now.

Kicking the can down the road is an expression often used to describe political manoeuvres and delay. Deploying this tactic on the Magdalene survivors is unworthy of this Dáil and its Members. I call on the Government to withdraw its amendment and support the original motion. If my plea falls on deaf ears, know this: by sheer force of numbers the Government side has succeeded only in doing the wrong thing.

I commend the survivors of the Magdalene laundries. Their stories are on the record. We hear them and we believe them. We cannot give them back their childhood, youth or their lives but we can say that they are due a full apology, redress, pension rights and a full affirmation of their innocence and their good name. I put it to the survivors and to those on the Government benches that we will not rest until the justice that these women deserve is delivered. The Government should do the right thing, set aside its stonewalling amendment and support this motion. It is the least these women should expect from their elected parliamentarians.

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