Shatter to act soon on Magdalene report

MINISTER FOR JUSTICE Alan Shatter will bring recommendations to Government “inside a very short time” in response to the report of the United Nations Committee Against Torture report on the women in the Magdalene laundries, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

He was responding to Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, who asked “when will these women get the recognition, the apology and the compensation they deserve”.

The UN report called for a statutory inquiry, a “prompt, independent and thorough investigation” into allegations of abuse against the women.

Up to 30,000 women were confined in these laundries between 1922 and 1996 and Ms McDonald said “they were held as prisoners and forced to work without pay. They were abused and many of them had their children taken from them. Some became so institutionalised that they could never leave or function outside of the institution. The State was complicit in all of this, chose to look the other way and failed these women.” Ms McDonald said the State “excluded these women from previous redress mechanisms”.

Mr Kenny said the Minister “is entitled to consider the detail of the Uncat report and to continue the work he is already doing in conjunction with the office of the Attorney General on this matter”.

He stressed that “it is clear that some of the women in the Magdalene laundries were sent there on remand arising from court decisions. Some were sent there for other reasons and some who left the laundries returned voluntarily. It is not true to say these were State-run institutions” in the sense Ms McDonald meant, he said.

Mr Kenny said that “taking into account the difficulties experienced by the women for a variety of circumstances, we at least owe it to them, after more than 100 years, to look at the implications of this report, at the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission and at the work being done by the Minister for Justice and Equality and the Attorney General,” he said.