Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. On first reading, the Minister makes a very plausible argument and if one were unaware of the detail of the Bill as proposed, one would conclude that it is a pretty good piece of legislation. However, as has become evident, there are serious flaws inherent in the Government's good intentions. While Fianna Fáil supports the Bill broadly, concerns have been expressed. Maeve O'Rourke of Justice for Magdalenes Research, JFMR, has said:

This draft legislation does not meet Judge Quirke's recommendation on healthcare for Magdalene women. [From the Minister's statement, one would say the Government had implemented all the Quirke recommendations in full.] It is an obvious and unacceptable paring back of what the Government promised as part of the women’s redress package. Judge Quirke could not have been clearer in recommending that each woman should receive a card entitling her to the full range of health services provided to State-infected hepatitis C survivors under the HAA card scheme. Instead, the Bill promises little more than the regular medical card, which most of the women already have.

Dr. Katherine O’Donnell of JFMR said:

The women who have received their lump sum compensation and pensions have promised not to sue the State in exchange for the full redress package recommended by Judge Quirke. [Here is the rub. They have promised not to sue the State if the full redress package is implemented.] However, this legislation is in clear breach of the women's legitimate expectations and puts those waivers on shaky ground.

This should be of concern to the Government.

Another criticism is that, without explanation, the Government has ignored Mr. Justice Quirke's recommendation to extend the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009 to Magdalen women who lack full capacity. The Bill, as currently proposed, is a further denial of the rights of women survivors of the Magdalen laundries in that it undermines the scheme as proposed by the Quirke report which provided only minimal recognition for the abuse women suffered and that a particular area of concern is the denial of full pension entitlements for the women. Although Mr. Justice Quirke clearly recommended that the women should be treated as if they had made full pension contributions, the Government is refusing to backdate the pension entitlements for women.

The charges that have been made against the Bill are very serious, and the Minister is already aware of them. Perhaps he is formulating a response and it will be interesting to hear what he has to say. The charges are very specific and focused and the overall thrust of the criticism is that the Government broke its promise, notwithstanding that everybody appreciated the heady days of the Taoiseach's apology. This applies particularly to women who had to leave the country for economic reasons having gone through the torture and trauma of a Magdalen laundry experience. Many of them returned and I well remember the day on which many of them appeared outside the gates of Leinster House, were in tears and said they had never thought they would see the day when a Taoiseach would stand up in the national Parliament and apologise in public on behalf of the Irish people. It is a long way from then to now.I can understand the distress the survivors are experiencing following on that experience, when they believed all the loose ends had been tidied up and all the promises would be implemented. Although all the right noises were made, several years later the position is there has not been a totally adequate response from the Government in this regard.

Before I conclude, I wish to put one or two other points on record to which the Minister of State perhaps can respond. While I understand there are more than 1,000 survivors of the Magdalen laundries, the Minister of State stated that almost 90% of applications out of 776 have been received so far and that he anticipates a small number of further applications will be received. I remember that at the time, there was widespread advertising among the Irish diaspora, particularly in England through the Irish Post and Irish Worldnewspapers and through the Irish Embassy. Is the Minister of State satisfied that everybody has been identified and notified at this stage? Have a small number of people fallen through the net? Are there some people who may not know about these provisions and about the redress scheme? In the context of top-up pension payments, will this affect those Irish living in England in particular who already are in receipt of State pensions from the United Kingdom Government? Will such a top-up affect their payments in any way? It appears as though this will not be means-tested here in Ireland but will be given to people as a top-up payment.

I will make one final and rather interesting point in the context of the history of the Magdalen laundries and I thank the Acting Chairman for her indulgence. I had grown up believing, particularly in recent years when this issue broke into the public domain, that the Magdalen laundries were homes for those families that literally had turfed out their daughters who had become pregnant. Yet, I am pleased to learn that only a minority of cases related to girls or women rejected by their families for having a child. I often remember, whenever this issue about pregnant Irish pregnant girls being turfed out by their families came up, that my late father used to rail against it. He used to say that in rural Ireland, there was much greater sympathy and understanding within families than often was reported and subsequently has been reported in the media. I thought I would make that rather interesting historical point, namely, only a minority of cases related to women or girls rejected by their families for having a child out of wedlock.