The interdepartmental committee report on State involvement with
Magdalene laundries will be presented to women who were in the laundries
and their advocacy groups in Dublin this morning.
It will also be presented to the Government at its weekly meeting today.
The
report was prepared under the chairmanship of Senator Martin McAleese
and the committee was set up in July 2011 “to establish the facts of
State involvement with the Magdalene laundries, to clarify any State
interaction, and to produce a narrative detailing such interaction”.
The report will be published this afternoon.
State involvement
Steven
O’Riordan of the Magdalene Survivors Together group said last night he
would be “flabbergasted” if the report found there was no State
involvement with the laundries.
He hoped that it would show the
full extent of that involvement and lay the basis for an apology
“without delay” by the Taoiseach on behalf of the State to the women
involved.
He noted how on July 20th, 2011, in response to the
Cloyne report, the Taoiseach had pointed out “this is not Rome. Nor is
it industrial-school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane
smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the
Irish-Catholic world. This is the ‘Republic’ of Ireland 2011.”
Mr
O’Riordan also hoped the report would lead to a scheme whereby the women
would be paid for work done in the laundries and secure for them
appropriate pensions.
Domination of laundries
The
first Magdalene laundry in Ireland opened on Dublin’s Leeson Street in
1767. Four female religious congregations came to dominate the running
of the laundries.
These were the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of our Lady of Charity of Refuge, and the Good Shepherd Sisters.
The latter congregation also operated a Magdalene laundry in Belfast until 1977.
There
were 10 Magdalene laundries in the Republic following independence.
These were at Waterford, New Ross, two in Cork, Limerick, Galway, and
four in Dublin at Dún Laoghaire, Donnybrook, Drumcondra and Gloucester
Street/Seán MacDermott Street.
This latter – and last – laundry closed
in October 1996.
Since 1900, exact figures for women in the laundries have not been available from the congregations.