David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The McAleese report released yesterday vindicates what the Magdalen women have been saying for a decade that the State was complicit in their detention, in their routes of entry into the laundries and in the direct State funding of the laundries. Nowhere was that more relevant and true than in the laundry in my home city of Waterford. If the Leader has read the report, he will see in the context of referrals from the courts and when women were sent to these laundries through the courts system, that the report makes particular note of this high practice in Waterford.

This whole episode is a blot on the history of this State and that is why many people were deeply disappointed with the Taoiseach's response yesterday. They were looking for the Taoiseach of this country to apologise, on behalf of the people of this State, to the women who suffered in these laundries. I accept fully the women's testimony when they say they were kept in these places against their will and that they were forced to work for nothing - a form of slave labour - that they were mistreated and that they were victims of physical and emotional abuse. All of those survivors and their families deserve an unequivocal apology by the Taoiseach of this State for what happened. He cannot say this was wrong and condemn what happened but not apologise on behalf of the State. I take the opportunity to appeal to the Leader to appeal to the Taoiseach to make that apology to the survivors and the victims, many of whom live in the Leader's home city of Waterford.