Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am very honoured to be in the position to be able to speak on this issue and to have been here for what was a long overdue apology - a heartfelt apology that has given great comfort and solace to the women who found themselves incarcerated in the Magdalen laundries for many years.

As the youngest female Member of this House, I think it incumbent on me to say that, thankfully, in this day and age it is hard for me to imagine that these kinds of conditions existed for women. On the basis of my reading of the report and listening to the stories of some women, including some of my constituents, who have shared their very painful stories with me in recent weeks and months, it comes down to one very common factor for all of these women - the crime or sin they were supposed to have committed was often that they were poor. Ireland of that day treated its poor by hiding them away. It did not want to see them and saw them as a blemish in the community. It was women, in particular, who were targeted because of our biology, because we are different. To my mind, that is one of the most significant issues that faced us as a country. One can still find instances in Ireland today where women are treated differently because of our biology.

As an elected Member for the constituency of Waterford, I would like to focus on the experience of some of those women. The Good Shepherd Magdalen laundry in Waterford was open from 1922 to 1996, when I was 16 years of age and living and attending school in Waterford city. Thousands of women were incarcerated in this laundry, which operated from a premises which now has a much happier purpose as the location of WIT's College Street campus. It was one of four laundries operated by the Good Shepherd Sisters, with others at New Ross, Cork and Limerick. The report also gives an account of St. Dominic's at Mayfield and Gracepark industrial schools, which were located at College Street at the time and had capacity for 200 children, who were also often incarcerated because they were poor.

The Waterford laundry was the last Magdalen institution to cease operating as a commercial laundry when it closed on 25 October 1996. It is sad to think such an institution was still running not that long ago. The financial records for the Waterford and New Ross laundries somehow did not survive. In the 1960s, there was an average of about 60 women in the Magdalen laundry in Waterford, and there was still an average of 40 women incarcerated in the 1980s. The average stay in the Good Shepherd laundry was from 46 weeks to 4.5 years, though some women stayed and, if we can call it that, lived there for 15 years.

There was no doubt but that the State was complicit in the incarceration of these women. The report catalogues how, in 1926, a convicted woman was sentenced to the Good Shepherd laundry, Waterford, for 12 months. In the 1950s, a 21 year old convicted woman was sent there to keep the peace and for good behaviour for 12 months. The records of the religious congregation confirm her entry into the Magdalen laundry from "the Court, Dublin". After the required one year's residence, she left the Magdalen laundry and "went to her mother". In another instance in Waterford, a girl was given an adjourned sentence for a set period on the condition she entered the laundry. The report notes that this was a trend in Waterford, again showing how complicit the State was in the incarceration of these women.

Cases of this kind were identified in Waterford in particular. Examples included a 17 year old girl who was in 1942 convicted and required by the court to remain in High Park convent on her own bail of £5 until sentencing 12 months later. The records of the religious congregation confirm she entered the laundry on that date - "time: 3 months" - and that, after that time, she was "sent home to her grandmother".

To me, some of the more harrowing parts of the report relate to the verbal abuse the women suffered, and I again focus on the reality that was experienced by the women in Waterford. Overwhelmingly, the majority of women who contributed to the report in Waterford described verbal abuse and being the victim of unkind, hurtful, taunting and belittling comments. A very poignant example was recounted by Olivia O'Leary on RTE Radio 1 a number of weeks ago, when she told a story of one elderly woman who stumbled going down a hallway. A nun remarked, "That's not the first time you've fallen".

Some 42 women died in the Waterford laundry between 1922 and 1982. The committee was unable to identify with certainty that nine of those deaths had been officially registered. That is the contempt in which this State dealt with those women. With regard to the routes of entry for the Waterford laundries, just under 10% were admitted by the clergy and 10% were sent by families, although I am under no illusion as to the kinds of social pressure they were under in terms of trying to conform with the social norms of the time. Some 14% of the women in the Waterford laundries were sent there by industrial schools. For me, this is one the saddest parts of the report. These girls and women had no family contact at all. They were sent from one arm of the State to another - from the industrial schools to a life of torment and abuse at the hands of the State in the laundries.

Ms Claire McGettrick of Justice for Magdalenes noted the case of a woman who was sent to Magdalen Laundry following her labour in the maternity hospital in which I myself was born. She had not recovered from the birth at the time and she ran away, as her baby was taken from her. She was returned by gardaí to the laundry and she was unable to leave after she was put out on a job. Her baby did not survive. In another example, a lady who had spent time in Waterford was sent to various laundries. She was subjected to awful emotional and psychological torture. When she finally got out and left Ireland, she held down a full-time job, something she had been made to believe she would never be able to do.

It was not just the religious and the State who were complicit in the incarceration of these woman. The report speaks of a Waterford GP, a Dr. Malachy Coleman, who worked with the Magdalen laundries from 1984 to 2000. He states in the McAleese report that he did not at any stage get the impression of coercion or fear in the relationship between ladies and nuns, although he felt the women had become institutionalised.

This was a case of blaming the women for how they were. A nun from the Good Shepherd Magdalen Laundry would stay with the women for the entire duration of his consultations. They were not even afforded the dignity of being able to attend a physician on their own. He did not feel they were prevented from talking to him about any subject but if one is the victim of institutionalised cruelty and that same person is the room with one, how is one supposed to disclose what is going on? How could one stand over this kind of practice? He felt women were fed well and cared for and went on holidays every year and on trips with the Lions Club and that this would somehow recompense for the lack of freedom these women suffered at the hands of the State. He felt the nuns were caring but the ladies were institutionalised.

We will never be able to do anything to take back the years we took away from these women but we can ensure they get access to the money they so deserve and the services they badly require.

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