The Taoiseach is expected to travel to England over the coming days
to hold further meetings with survivors of the Magdalene Laundries. Enda Kenny revealed plans for the trip as he accused Fianna Fáil of showing disrespect for the women by pressing ahead with last night’s Dáil motion calling for a state apology.
Fianna Fáil announced the motion before Mr Kenny’s meeting with six victims on Monday when he signalled that an apology would be issued next Tuesday.
During Leaders’ Questions, Mr Kenny suggested Fianna Fáil should withdraw the motion, pending a Dáil discussion next week on the Magdalene Laundries report by Martin McAleese.
“I would have thought that having given a clear signal of what we would like to do here, that a political motion put in this way shows scant respect for the authors of the report and less respect for the persons for whom it’s about,” Mr Kenny said.
Earlier, Fianna Fáil moved to prevent the motion from backfiring, issuing a statement saying it was “time to put politics aside and unite in an apology”.
Its justice spokesman, Niall Collins, said the motion focused on more than just the need for an apology “but also on the need for a thorough and co-ordinated response from the State to the McAleese report”.
Fianna Fáil is proposing the establishment of a unit within the Department of Justice to handle all forms of redress for the Magdalene survivors.
Mr Kenny told the Dáil: “It’s quite complex in the various circumstances and directions from which and through which people arrived at the Magdalene Laundries and the difficulties that they encountered.”
The Taoiseach praised the women who met him on Monday and “the way they spoke, their stories, their personal accounts of their childhood and their reflections 50 years on”.
He repeated the words of one woman who said “there is a corridor in my mind and I never go into the room in the back cause it’s there every day, every day”.
Mr Kenny told the Dáil: “I hope before the weekend to have a couple of other engagements, both here and abroad.”
Transport Minister Leo Varadkar said he expected there will be an apology but “the nature of the apology has to be worked out”.