Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise a recent publication of which the Taoiseach may be aware, entitled A Dublin Magdalene Laundry - Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Irelandedited by Mark Coen, Katherine O'Donnell and Maeve O'Rourke. This new publication tells the story of Donnybrook Magdalen laundry, which was established in 1837 by the Religious Sisters of Charity. It reveals a significant amount of new information that is of significant political interest and two key questions arise from it. First, does the Taoiseach acknowledge that the book calls into question several key findings of the interdepartmental committee on the Magdalen laundries, the so-called McAleese committee that produced a report in 2013? The McAleese committee suggested, for example, that the financial records of the Donnybrook laundry did not survive but this book shows that some of them did and remained on site right up to the 1990s. The report says the Magdalen laundries operated on a break-even basis but the book shows that Donnybrook was generating a good financial surplus annually, up to half of which was transferred to the Religious Sisters of Charity. That surplus was generated by slavery - the unpaid work of girls and women. I will say it again - it was generated by the slavery of those women and girls incarcerated in laundries. Records discovered by Mark Coen in the Dublin Diocesan Archives prove that Donnybrook had a laundry contract with the military, although the McAleese report says that the committee was unable to verify this claim. The Department of Defence revoked the contract as the Religious Sisters of Charity were in violation of the fair wages clause that is in all State contracts but that fact is omitted from the McAleese report.

Will the Taoiseach acknowledge some key inaccuracies in the McAleese report that have been shown up by this book? Second, will the Government now introduce legislation to criminalise the destruction, alteration or failure to preserve institutional records by those who possess them, including those who were involved in these Magdalen laundries, which were terrible institutions?

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