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

I am sharing my time with Deputies Catherine Byrne, Seán Kenny, Michelle Mulherin, Arthur Spring, Jerry Buttimer, Anne Ferris and Regina Doherty.

Before the debate on this motion began last night, Deputy Niall Collins issued the following statement: "This motion gives all members of the Dáil the opportunity to put politics aside". Deputy Collins and his party knew well that there was to be a full debate in this House on the report within two weeks of its publication. Rather than wait another week while the report could be fully considered and the views of those affected by it sought, why did Fianna Fáil choose to seek to have the matter debated in Private Members' time this week? Was it to give this House an opportunity to put aside politics? Is anyone seriously expected to believe that? Instead, this is a shameful attempt to make political capital from a report dealing with the hurt felt by many women during and as a result of the time they spent in a Magdalen laundry.

Deputy Collins also said the motion gives all Members of this House an opportunity to "unite in our response to the suffering of these women". I do not question the personal compassion of any Member of this House for the women affected but it is reasonable to ask where was the concern, compassion and quest for truth during the 14 long years when the party opposite was in government and during which time it chose to take no action to deal properly with this serious and important issue. Where was Deputy Collins and when did he raise this issue during those 14 years? Now we are to take at face value Fianna Fáil's concern that two weeks is too long to devise a considered response to this report, and that the Government should not even take the time to listen to the response to the findings of the report of those who were admitted to and worked in Magdalen laundries.

This breathtaking level of opportunism, cynicism and hypocrisy, even by the standards of Fianna Fáil, is not confined to that party. Sinn Féin also supports the motion. It also seems to believe that two weeks is too long a period to take in order to respond fully to this report, yet it took nearly 17 years after Detective Garda Jerry McCabe was murdered, and only after another detective garda suffered the same dreadful fate, before it saw fit to apologise in this House. In the debate last night, Deputy Ó Caoláin, without any apparent sense of irony, accused others of "mean-spirited and defensive utterances". I believe I will be forgiven for not taking lessons from Sinn Féin in how to respond properly to people who have been caused pain and hurt.

In regard to the two weeks that will have elapsed between the publication of former Senator McAleese's report and the Government's substantive response, I draw the attention of the House, and in particular the attention of the Members opposite, to the fact that it was always the Government's stated intention that the report would be considered by it following publication and that it would be responded to thereafter. On 13 March 2012, in response to a priority question tabled by Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan in regard to the Magdalen laundries, I stated:

The report of the interdepartmental committee will provide us with the additional information we need. It will be published, considered by Government and appropriate decisions will be made arising out of it.

In fairness to Deputy Ó Cuív, whose thinking contrasted starkly with the base opportunism demonstrated by the timing of this motion, he had the decency to acknowledge in his contribution that the Government needed time to produce a detailed response and that he would be happy if the Taoiseach came to the House next week with a considered response. I can assure the House that the Government will not be distracted from responding fully and properly to the McAleese report by this ill-timed debate.

I was not surprised by the conclusion of Dr. McAleese's report that there was significant State involvement in regard to the Magdalen laundries. I had maintained this publicly long before my appointment as Minister for Justice and Equality.

When Members opposite expressed regrets last night for not having done enough in government, which is just a euphemism for having done nothing at all, it was not for the want of my and others pointing out on countless occasions that there were issues that needed to be addressed. In December 2009, a former Fianna Fáil colleague in Dublin South, Tom Kitt, and I raised this issue in the House but got no substantive response from the Government.

A short time after my appointment, I was glad that I met, with the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, some of the women who were residents in the Magdalen laundries and the religious congregations to facilitate our obtaining a full comprehensive narrative of the years of the laundries. I am glad we were in a position to set aside years of neglect in relation to this issue by asking the then Senator Dr. McAleese to chair a group to examine exactly the level of State involvement. We now have, for the first time, clear and comprehensive answers.

In the first instance, I thank and commend the courage of the women who told their stories of their experiences in a Magdalen laundry. I also thank the religious congregations for making their substantial records available.

I thank Dr. McAleese for his work. I am personally very grateful for the calm compassion with which he approached his task and cast a light into an area where darkness was allowed linger for far too long.

We owe it to the women who were admitted to and worked in the Magdalen laundries to try to understand as fully as we can everything there is to know about the operation of the laundries. Dr. McAleese's report is fundamental to that understanding. He points out in his introduction that, "There is no single or simple story of the Magdalen Laundries." Those who have read the report will well understand the truth of that and why it is said at the very start. This is because, beyond the immediate issues which the Government is addressing, the report raises fundamental questions about how our society lived over the decades. I am conscious that any society rejects much of what was done by previous generations and of the dangers of judging by today's standards the behaviour of our predecessors. However, we are all still entitled to be shocked that some foster parents left children in the laundries when their foster payments stopped and that a significant number of people went into the laundries of their own volition, presumably because they felt that life would be better for them there than it was on the outside. The bleak reality is that this may very well have been so. The report points out that many girls and women were placed in the laundries by their families for reasons we may never know or fully understand. There were also the referrals by, or on behalf of, the State which the report outlines.

What obligations do we, as a people, now have for what went on in some areas of Irish life since the foundation of this State and how do we fulfil those obligations? That is the key question we are trying to address. The women who were admitted to and worked in the laundries deserve the best supports the State can provide, but it would be to mislead this House to suggest, in the light of the complexities outlined in the report, that there is an instant, simple, complete answer to that question. What I can say is that we are determined, having listened to some of the women concerned, to resolve all these issues in a fair and compassionate way, and that is a matter which will be returned to in next week's debate.

A considerable concern of many of the women has been the unfair stigmatising labels that were often attached to those who were in the Magdalen laundries. The cruel myth has been laid to rest beyond doubt by this report. The report represents the most authoritative account we have of the laundries and it acknowledges in detail for the first time the level of State involvement. It acknowledges the reality of the lives that the women who were admitted to and worked in the laundries had to lead. We believe the accounts they gave and believe clearly what the report sets out.

The reporting procedure gave people who had experience of the laundries the opportunity to give their first-hand testimony. The report mentions that, in some cases, young girls were not told why they were being admitted to the laundries, how long they had to stay there or when they could leave. Some feared they were to be incarcerated for the rest of their lives. Added to that unthinkable uncertainty, over the years they, like the many others who were admitted to the laundries, lived in the shadow of not knowing when, or if, their stories would be told.

Their stories have been told now. Having got to this point, we are determined to play our part to try to bring about healing and reconciliation and possibly even help bring some closure on what they endured. The women's stories have been told and are believed. That is of substantial importance to many who felt that, for too long, they were ignored, including for 14 years by the party opposite which saw fit to table this motion. The approach taken by the Government is right and considered. It involves our engaging with those who lived in the laundries and listening to what they have to say following the publication of the report. That is why I recommend the amendment to the House.

See this speech in context