Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy the Deputy has quoted what I said because it has proved to be right. I said there was a State involvement and that people lived in barbaric conditions. The report has established that 26% of the residents were referred by the State in various modes, whether it was through the criminal justice system, or individuals who were residents in industrial schools and who were released conditionally on the basis that they would go into the Magdalen laundries for some time. Therefore, my concerns were proven to be correct.

There were suggestions that individuals had not only been emotionally abused but had perhaps been physically or sexually abused. Former Senator McAleese's report establishes that there was not physical or sexual abuse, but there certainly was emotional abuse. The environment in which young women lived was not one within which any of us would wish to live. I am not happy that that is the case but my view of that has been vindicated. That is why, as a Minister, I was determined to establish an inquiry to get maximum information and in circumstances where the maximum records were available. Former Senator McAleese achieved that. He also achieved the co-operation of the religious congregations in getting crucial information. When Deputies read the report, they will see information from the congregations matched against State records. One can then identify the routes through which people found themselves in the laundries.

This is not just a State issue, however, because 74% of the residents came there without the State being engaged or involved. We must consider how we can proceed further. There is a particular issue in the context of how the State deals with that matter. It is different to the industrial schools. Nearly everyone who found themselves in industrial schools were there by virtue of court proceedings, either care proceedings or criminal proceedings. Here we have 74% of people who found themselves resident in laundries in circumstances where there was not a State involvement. This is not about dancing on the head of a pin, it is about examining what needs to be done for those people today, what is fair and how one approaches it. For example, I do not think there is a Deputy in this House who would take the view that someone whom the courts remanded to a Magdalen laundry and who might have lived in a laundry for two, three or four days should be paid compensation. They would have been there briefly and may otherwise have been briefly in prison. It is difficult to talk about these things in this way because it will be portrayed as being unsympathetic.

The reason we set up this committee was because of an absolute commitment by this Government, including myself personally and the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, that we would get the full story, following which we would have colleagues consider it and make serious decisions. In fairness to members of the Cabinet, including the Taoiseach, they would not have seen this report until yesterday. They first had a briefing from former Senator McAleese. We live in a world where everyone expects instant answers to everything. The alternative to publishing the report would have been for the Government to retain it for a number of weeks and then announce decisions on foot of it. Instead we took the view that the women had been waiting for many years to have their story vindicated. We also took the view that there should be transparency and that the moment former Senator McAleese completed it it should be published. It was published so quickly that the final chapter came to me on Monday morning. We were anxious to publish it for the women's sake, to give Members of the House a full insight into the background, and then move on to consider how we can deal in a humane, considered and careful way with the consequences of what people experienced. That is the Government's intention.

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