Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have set up an inquiry and an apology will certainly be forthcoming. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the report by former Senator McAleese on the Magdalen laundries. Former Senator McAleese and the committee are to be commended on their excellent work in bringing to light what happened to these women and for setting out the role of the State in the operation of the laundries. I pay tribute to the Magdalen women who suffered so grievously and fought with dignity for many years for recognition and justice.

The bare numbers indicate the scale of what went on in the Magdalen laundries. More than 10,000 women spent time in the laundries since the foundation of the State in 1922. The State was involved in referring more than 2,000 of these women to the laundries. It is clear that the State played a major role in various aspects of the Magdalen institutions. Former Senator McAleese has pointed out that many of the women who testified to the committee experienced the laundries as lonely and frightening places. These women were often cruelly labelled as fallen women, which was an entirely inaccurate characterisation not borne out by the facts.

I lived beside the Magdalen laundry on Sean McDermott Street for 15 years and I have campaigned on the issue for many years. My initial involvement followed the attempt by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity to exhume the bodies of Magdalen women buried at Hyde Park in Drumcondra in 1992. The exhumation was carried out to make way for a housing development. The sisters were selling the land to a private developer and were applying for planning permission before the deal was finalised. Little thought was given to the women buried there and what happened was callous in the extreme. Former Senator McAleese's report notes the careless use of a bulldozer to exhume these women. Moreover, when the undertakers finally carried out the exhumation in 1993 they discovered in unmarked graves the remains of an additional 22 women who were not accounted for in the original application. It was not until 2005 that all 155 women whose remains were exhumed were identified and matched to names and dates of death. A motion that I tabled condemning the action and calling for an inquiry was passed unanimously by Dublin City Council but nothing happened for a number of years.

I continued to be involved with the Magdalen memorial committee and in April 1996, I was involved in the unveiling of a small plaque on a bench in St. Stephen's Green to commemorate the Magdalen women. The plaque, which was unveiled by then President Mary Robinson, was dedicated to the women who worked in the Magdalen laundry institutions and the children born to some members of those communities and asked passers-by to reflect upon their lives. Until 1996, I remained closely involved with the women of the last remaining laundry on Sean McDermott Street. When the laundry closed that year, I engaged with the sisters to ensure the remaining women who were unable to cope in the outside world would be transferred to Hyde Park on a voluntary basis and after consultation with relatives.

The unveiling of the plaque in 1996 was an historic step in recognising the suffering the suffering of the Magdalen women and the wrongs done to them. Now that the facts have been set out in former Senator McAleese's report, it is essential that a formal apology is offered by the Government and that a suitable method of compensation and assistance is devised. I am confident that the matter will be resolved in a way that satisfies these courageous women.

I am sure the Government will not be found wanting in dealing with the outstanding issue of the Bethany homes, which were the Protestant equivalent of the Magdalen laundries. They were not nearly as widespread but women were detained in them against their will and the State also played a supervisory and complicit role. We must deal with the industrial schools for the children, the Magdalen laundries for the Catholic women and the Bethany homes for the Protestant women. We must establish a committee along the lines of that established under former Senator McAleese.

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