Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Deputy's comment, his expression of sorrow of not having dealt with the Magdalen laundries situation when responsibility was his and his party's. If I recall correctly, they refused to investigate it then, but that is a different issue. This Government is dealing with it. In the context of the McAleese report, which sets out the truth, it should also be recognised, in complimenting former Senator McAleese, that this report, for which people have waited very many years, cost €11,000 approximately in comparison with other reports which have cost millions and that no member of the committee accepted any stipend for their work on this.

This Government has to deal with what is in the McAleese report and we will deal with it, but because it is an issue that is complex, that there can be no discrimination in regard to those women who were in Magdalen laundries in the sense of the environment in which they had to live, despite the fact that they came from different routes to the laundries, it is only right and proper that we take the report, examine it individually and collectively as a Government and decide what is the best approach to dealing with the needs and the requirements of the survivors of the Magdalen laundries and to deal with those in the most appropriate and fitting manner that we can. I would like us to apply ourselves to that in the intervening period before the House debates the report here in two weeks time.

From the report and the briefing on it given to Cabinet by former Senator McAleese, it was very clear from the people who spoke to him and his committee that their overriding requirement was to have the stigma attached to the Magdalen laundries removed, but it is fair to say that their other overriding concern was a sense of fear that they had at not knowing when they might be able to leave the Magdalen laundries. I want to say to the House that this is an issue that has affected the lives of women negatively, as is pointed out in the report, but it also has implications in regard to their families in many cases and to their circle of friends. I would like genuinely to say that the process by which we bring closure and reconciliation here is one that deserves really genuine consideration by Government, and I intend to see that happens. From that point of view, I would like the space to work with Government on putting in place a process and a structure by which the State can, in so far as it can, bring closure and reconciliation in regard to these women and help them in whatever way we can.

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