Madam, – Does Taoiseach Brian Cowen believe that women deserved the treatment they endured in the nation’s Magdalene laundries? Does he really think there is nothing to apologise for? Or, does he not care? Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), a survivor advocacy group, questions Mr Cowen’s political leadership on this issue.
Nine months have elapsed since we first circulated draft language towards a distinct redress scheme. At that time we also called for an official apology. Is there to be no redress, no apology, for Ireland’s forgotten women and children – the nation’s disappeared? Today (March 25th) our group will meet the Minister for Health. We will ask Ms Harney to acknowledge the policy whereby women giving birth to a second “illegitimate” child in a State-licensed mother-and-baby home were transferred to the laundries.
Likewise, we seek explanation of capitation grants paid by the old boards of health for “problem girls” sent to these institutions – payments of £8.25 per capita per week in July 1972.
As a result of previous meetings, the Department of Justice now acknowledges that women were placed “on remand” at the Seán Mac Dermott Street laundry. And, the courts routinely referred women to the laundries rather than enforcing a prison sentence.
The Department of Education now acknowledges that children were confined in the laundries as late as 1970. Mary Hanafin, responding to a recent parliamentary question, betrayed the fact that the laundries did not comply with the statutory requirements governing social welfare payments. The Minister for Finance, responding to a similar question, refused to comment on whether the laundry “workers” ever paid taxes.
Justice for Magdalenes has asked Government departments to produce records for the women and children referred to the laundries. We have asked them to identify the statutory basis upon which the State sent women there. We have asked whether the institutions were ever inspected, regulated, or licensed? Instead of answers, Justice for Magdalenes receives assurances of “interdepartmental co-operation.” We are told that records don’t exist for women the State sent to the laundries. We are told the State cannot compel the religious congregations to release their records.
But ministers and civil servants have acknowledged complicity. The question now is whether the Government has the political will to provide justice for survivors? Their default position remains unchanged: the laundries were “privately owned and operated institutions”. Their overriding concern is to limit financial liability.
Magdalene survivors are making their case for redress and compensation. These women deserve to be treated with respect. Many are elderly. Some are still in the “care” of the religious congregations. Others remain haunted by past institutional abuse.
Time is not on their side. Too many lie buried in improperly marked mass graves. No one has owned up to the fact that what happened to Ireland’s Magdalene women was wrong.
We need to know the stories of these laundries so that we can better comprehend the nation’s recent past and become more sensitised to the mistakes made in the name of our State in the present. Change requires political leadership and courage and, to date at any rate, both are noticeably absent. – Yours, etc,