Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not in any shape or form pursuing this in an adversarial way or in an idle way or in a speculative way but, in essence, the report, substantive and comprehensive as it is, does not take away any stigma in its entirety. The only effective way for any stigma to be removed for the women involved is by the State formally apologising to the women concerned, which essentially involves saying what happened to them in society during that period was wrong - no ifs or buts.

I was involved in relation to the industrial schools and I chaired an interdepartmental committee that led, in May 1999, to a State apology to the survivors of the industrial schools. I regret and am sorry that we did not deal with the Magdalen laundries question in tandem with the industrial schools issue. They were huge issues at the time involving enormous numbers. The point I would make from my experience of having met the women involved in Goldenbridge at the time is that the most fundamental need they articulated to me, above and beyond redress, other responses or anything else: "was just for somebody to say to us that what was done to you was wrong, it wasn't our fault and we are sorry for it". The same applies now without question to the women of the Magdalen laundries. The Government of the day has to stand up and say on behalf of all of us and on behalf of society that what was done to these women was wrong.

When that original apology was made, there was no talk of redress at the time. Other issues were dealt with - education, welfare, housing and so on - and legal obstacles were removed for people to pursue issues, which led to other things happening subsequently. As I said, mechanisms can be put in place to deal with other issues that will undoubtedly flow from this report.

Now that the report is published, the essential route to removing any sense of culpability that people may have, any sense of wonder or of questioning as to why they were placed in these laundries, something that comes out in the report: "the sense of why were we put in here as young people, when will we ever be released", along with the loss of freedom and the denial of contact, all which has left a deep, profound, traumatic and negative impact on these women's lives, as the executive summary concludes, and the only way to bring closure in the first instance to those women is for the State to apologise unequivocally. I put that to the Taoiseach in a respectful and non-adversarial way.

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