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

Many of the former residents of the Magdalen homes very much welcomed the engagement of former Senator McAleese. They very much welcomed the careful consideration and sensitive engagement that he had with them. They were generally very pleased with the report that was published.

Many of them do not want to revisit this issue. They were anxious that the State accept its responsibilities. The Taoiseach, on behalf of the State, apologised for the suffering that they experienced and our focus now is on implementing the scheme for their benefit. We do not believe there is anything additional that would be beneficial to anyone that can be achieved by further inquiries to individuals who have been through stress in their lives again being required in some way to recount past events.

Former Senator McAleese conducted a careful investigation. In the context of what the Deputy says as between Mr. Justice Quirke and former Senator McAleese, it was not Mr. Justice Quirke's job to investigate the background to the Magdalen laundries.

What Mr. Justice Quirke was asked to do, based on the findings of Professor McAleese, was to propose the most appropriate ex gratia scheme that could be put in place to assist the women concerned. He had contact with numbers of them, but he was not asked nor did he attempt to make a definitive decision on the exact percentage of women who had experienced different difficulties. Of course, the issue in the context of the scheme is that the women concerned have to establish two things: first, that they were in either one of the Magdalen laundries or the other two institutions; and, second, the length of time spent in these institutions. The sisters involved are co-operating fully in providing all of the necessary records in an effort to establish and verify timeframes. This is being done in respect of over 250 applicants. The information is available for the processing of some of these applications. There will be a difficulty with a small number of women in cases where records are imperfect. There may well be some disagreement about the length of time involved, but I am advised by my officials that this has not yet emerged as a significant difficulty. We deal with matters in a sensitive and as careful a way as possible, bearing in mind the difficulties all of the women experienced during their lives.

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