Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The history of the Magdalene laundries and the tens of thousands of women who were incarcerated, abused, exploited and enslaved in those institutions is a black stain on the history of this State and is part of a landscape of shame that includes the industrial schools, the Bethany Home and widespread abuse of children by the church. The State is ultimately responsible for this. The role of the religious orders and the church hierarchy is beyond question, in the way they used their twisted notions of morality to justify visiting appalling suffering, abuse and exploitation on tens of thousands women. That is well known and beyond question. However, it is the State that is ultimately responsible for the welfare of every citizen. It is well documented that the State was directly and indirectly, through neglect and through turning a blind eye, responsible for allowing these horrors, this abuse, exploitation and enslavement to be inflicted on so many Irish women over decades.

The State passed laws and took measures that directly underpinned the Magdalene laundry system. The gardaí returned women who fled or escaped to these institutions. The State provided direct and indirect financial support to the laundries and abdicated its duty of care to these women by failing to ensure that their human rights were vindicated. All of this was done very deliberately by the State. It essentially used the church and its institutions as a method of social control, for cynical economic and political reasons and for twisted notions of morality. Against this context, it is shameful that this Government is continuing to delay giving these women the justice, acknowledgement and the compensation they deserve for the suffering they endured at the hands of the church and the State. The Government has no excuse for further delay. The survivors and victims have said they support the interdepartmental committee but it should not be used as an excuse to delay the apology and the redress that they deserve now. The Government should give that to them tonight.

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