Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I was not in this Chamber two years ago but I watched on my television as the current Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, made a very moving and impassioned speech to the Magdalen women.

In fact, during the course of the speech, the Taoiseach was even moved to tears. However, when we look at what is on offer for those women today we would have to conclude they were crocodile tears, not real tears. I printed out his speech. It states, "As a society ... we failed you. We forgot you ... This is a national shame", and he promised them a "new dawn for all those who feared that the dark midnight might never end." He even quoted from the song, "Whispering Hope". It is clear that all of the women's groups that have come together that have been cited by previous TDs on the Oppositions benches here are hardly doing it for fun. The Government is back-tracking on what it promised these women and their health and pension entitlements.

By the way, the Government has not conducted investigations into these situations at any time. The McAleese report was a whitewash. It never should have been conducted by somebody who was a devout Catholic, a well-known pillar of the establishment and well-known for his religious views, and hardly likely to produce the most independent report.

These are women who signed up for a minimal redress and yet they put their faith in the Government. They believed the tears that the Taoiseach shed, but now we find that the Government is back-tracking on the most basic health care. For many of these women, some of whom I have met who have lung cancer, who have a limited time to live and who in many cases are in the twilight of their years, the recommendations of Mr. Justice Quirke, as has been stated, were for a full HAA card exactly like what applies to the women who were the victims of the tragedy of the hepatitis C scandal.

There are seven deficits in what was recommended by Mr. Justice Quirke and given today by the Government. First, hepatitis C victims are facilitated within two weeks to see many doctors. All of the women have medical cards in general, but a medical card, as the Minister should know well, does not mean one gets swift treatment, and one could be sitting on a waiting list for years. These women were treated like slaves. The least we can offer them is that they will get swift treatment. They should be in the Blackrock Clinic, not sitting on public health waiting lists. The second recommendation was access to necessary medicines, high-tech drugs, aids and appliances that one cannot get on the medical card. The third one related to counselling. The fourth one was what the Minister disingenuously yesterday called "alternative therapies", which are actually called "complementary therapies" - those words were not accidental. We are not talking about Angel Healing, which I heard somebody mention. We are talking about obvious benefits to women's health and well-being, such as massage, manipulation-based therapies and hydrotherapy, reflexology and acupuncture. All of those have had benefits for those who have illnesses, such as rheumatism. The women are not getting liaison officers. They themselves will have to battle away in the creaking health services. Another recommendation was independent representation and advocates for those who are in nursing homes or may have more limited capacity.

The other issue is full pension entitlements. Mr. Justice Quirke recommended that the women should be treated as if they had made full contributions and the Government is now refusing to back-date that. It is incredible that the State, for example, paid compensation of €33 million to a developer for a site worth €3 million, the Harcourt Street Garda station site, just before Christmas without a bother and yet it is penny-pinching today for the women who were victims of the State and church abuse over the years. I am not surprised. It is part of a long pattern in this country where women, in particular poor women and working class women, had their lives and bodies controlled by the State and by the church.

For the past 90 years, the State, in particular, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, gave inordinate power to religious orders to control the lives of young people and the lives of women. Today, it is being continued. It has not ended. People talk about a dark past. This is not the past. The church in this country has inordinate power, in particular over health and education. This morning on the radio we heard about parents who have to get baptismal certificates to get their children into schools where they live. This is a common practice in my constituency, Dublin West, which is the youngest in Western Europe, where there is a shortage of school places. I would like the Minister of State, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, to answer why a former Labour Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, saw fit to give control of a secondary school that is being established in Tyrrelstown in my area - the most multiethnic place in the country with 51% non-Irish - to a Catholic conglomerate called Le Chéile, which includes the religious order Good Shepherd Sisters - the charity sisters who ran these Magdalen laundries - and the symbol of which is a cross. It is an insult to the Hindus, Muslims, atheists and non-believers in the area. The Government has not ended the church control of education. These orders, by the way, have been noticeable in their lack of apologies and lack of compensation to these women.

In the area of health, the Government continues to give the church control over maternity services and women's health in an inordinate way. Under the eighth amendment, a crying shame, a woman is equated with a foetus. Over Christmas we saw the disgraceful case of a clinically dead pregnant woman being kept alive.

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