Magdalene group says meeting with Department of Education helpful

THE JUSTICE for Magdalenes group said it had a positive and constructive meeting with Department of Education officials yesterday and it would now seek a similar meeting with the Department of Health.

The group is campaigning on behalf of women who were sent to Magdalene laundries and it is seeking a distinct redress scheme for these women.

Spokeswoman Claire McGettrick said the Department of Education did not give a commitment to set up a redress scheme because this would involve several Government departments “but they were helpful in that regard”.

She said officials had confirmed that girls transferred from reformatory schools to laundries were eligible for redress under the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002. However, women who contacted Justice for Magdalenes had complained that the residential redress board did not acknowledge their time spent in the Magdalene laundries.

“They still feel that one missing hole is there, because their time in the laundry, which was often much worse than their time in the industrial school, was not yet acknowledged by the church and school,” Ms McGettrick said.

“JFM now calls for a distinct redress scheme for all survivors of the Magdalene laundries.”

At the two-hour meeting, the group also asked the Minister for Education to make public the number of children who were transferred to a Magdalene laundry from a State-regulated institution as well as the number of survivors who had applied to the redress board because they had lived in a laundry.

It repeated its request that the State apologise to survivors for its part in the abuse of women in Magdalene laundries.

Ms McGettrick said the officials had acknowledged that the State was complicit in referring girls from reformatory schools to Magdalene laundries.

In September, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe said the State did not refer individuals to laundries but last week he acknowledged the Department of Justice’s confirmation that some women were referred by the courts to the Magdalene laundries.

In a brief statement issued after the meeting, a Department of Education spokesman said department officials had met the representatives.

“The group made a presentation to the department officials following which there was discussion of the issues raised and an agreement to continue contact.”