Madam, – Brian Cowen and Ministers Mary Coughlan, Dermot Ahern, and Mary Harney met representatives of the religious orders regarding additional contributions towards a fund for survivors of residential institutions (Home News, April 16th).
I wonder whether Magdalene laundry survivors are being discussed or considered as part of these deliberations? The four religious congregations which operated the laundries – Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, Good Shepherd Sisters, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity – also managed residential institutions (in many cases both sets of institutions were part of the one convent complex). They are also members of Cori.
Are the survivors of institutional abuse in the Magdalene laundries legally entitled to make a claim on any fund established as a result of these ongoing deliberations? Or, will the Magdalene survivors once again be excluded, as they are under the terms of the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002? Will these women be forgotten in the present as they were in the past?
Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) – a survivor advocacy group –has called on the Irish State to apologise and to establish a distinct redress scheme for all Magdalene survivors. Our group has demonstrated that the State was indeed complicit in referring women to the Magdalene institutions. We have recently had meetings with the departments of Justice, Education, and Health and urged the State to compel the religious orders to participate in a process of effecting justice for Magdalene survivors. We have also received assurances from Cardinal Seán Brady that he is intent on working towards “a just solution” for Magdalene survivors.
The question remains, whether the leader and senior Cabinet members of the Irish Government advocated for justice on behalf of the victims and survivors of the Magdalene laundries when they met representatives of the Catholic Church? – Yours, etc,