The Irish Government has ordered a limited investigation in the torture and degrading treatment against women and girls who were housed in the Magdalene laundries, run by the Catholic Church.
Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) has welcomed the news. In a statement released by the group they said “we see this as a further positive step to bringing “Restorative Justice and Reparations” to all survivors of the Magdalene Laundries.”
JFM looks forward to working with both the State and the religious congregations in the coming weeks and months to bring about a prompt and timely resolution to this “restorative and reconciliation process”.
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Their investigations will involve an inter-departmental committee chaired by an independent person. However this falls short of the inquiry that was demanded by the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the Irish Human Rights Committee last month.
This proposed limited investigation will aim to “clarify any State interaction with the Magdalene laundries and to produce a narrative detailing such interaction”. The Government has said that they wish to establish the true facts relating to the laundries, according to a statement released by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter earlier this week.
The key demand of the UN, IHRC and the groups who represent the victims of the laundries was the payment of compensation was not mentioned in his statement. However the Government did promise to put in place a “restorative and reconciliation process” involving the religious congregations that ran the laundries and former residents.
Shatter, along with Kathleen Lynch, the Minister of State with his department, will meet with the congregations and ask them to make their records available. They will also provide information on former residents still in care.
On Monday the Government decided to set up an inter-departmental committee which will make a progress report within three months, according to Irish Times reports.
The Justice for Magdalenes group (JFM) noted “that the government is not yet prepared to issue a formal apology to the women despite the fact that an apology remains their first and most important request. Survivors speaking in recent days stressed the importance of an apology as the first crucial step in restoring their dignity and sense of citizenship.
Their statement continued “We remind the government that the UN Committee Against Torture has already found the State liable: “The Committee is gravely concerned at the failure by the State party to protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined between 1922 and 1996 in the Magdalene Laundries, by failing to regulate their operations and inspect them.”
The JFM said it was importance as the investigations began to remember who they were doing it for - “the women who spent time in the institutions and their children. Many survivors are aging and elderly. Some women feel that heretofore both Church and State have pursued a policy of “deny ‘til they die.””
Last month the UN Committee Against Torture recommended that the Government set up an investigation into the treatment of the women and girls who were forced to work in these institutions without pay. They said that perpetrators should be punished and redress provided to the women.
These groups have criticized the Government for not regulating or inspecting the laundries which were run by four congregations: the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Religious Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy and the Good Shepherd Sisters.
Shatter said the Government now welcomes the four congregations to bring “clarity, understanding, healing and justice in the interests of all the women involved”. He added that Government would have to give some consideration as to who would be an appropriate independent chair for the committee.
Last May Enda Kenny, now the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) told the Dail (Parliament) that the Department of Justice was considering a reparation scheme. Also last May speaking at a hearing of the UN Committee in Geneva, Switzerland Sean Aylward of the Department of Justice said that the Irish State could not “rewrite its history”.
The first Magdalene laundry opened in 1767, in Dublin. At the end of the 20th century there were ten laundries in operation in Ireland. The last closed its doors in 1996.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Intercessor | Jun 19, 2011, 09:07 PM EDT
The Hierarchy and each Order of Nuns, who ran the Laundries, benefitted immensely, off of the SLAVE Labor of the Magdalenes. For any kind of justice to exist all Convent lands should be sold and the moneys given to the Magdalenes and their descendants. The Archdioceses, who received remuneration from the government for each Magdalene that they brought into the laundries, should need to pay as well, until they BLEED GREEN like tomato worms! The Catholic Church always profited from slave labor, whether it was five centuries ago by helping the Spanish Conquistadors enslave indigenous Indians in the Americas or in the 1900's, in the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. Justice demands compensation, but in most cases where the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, it'll most often "be too little, too late!" What I find most unfortunate is that this institutional horror was exported to Australia and New Zealand. Thankfully, they couldn't have gotten away with this in the States.
culchiewoman | Jun 17, 2011, 11:27 AM EDT
@Porickseantuny. Sorry, you're dead wrong. The Church did financially benefit, as monies collected from the commercial laundering and sewing done in all 10 Laundries (recognized in the Free State post-1922) was filtered up through the Church heirarchy. And they weren't "hospitals". I suggest a read of James Smith's 'Ireland's Magdalene Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment,' which is thoroughly researched and accurate. That way you won't spout ignorant comments. @oldboreen: you're on the money (padron the pun). Irish society colluded as much as the State and conveniently 'subcontracted' the work of incarcerating anyone who didn't mean the Irish standard of "pure holiness" (or financial status) to the nuns. Not that the nuns didn't willfully (and at times brutally and gleefully) participate. We all have a lot to answer for.
IAPRINCESS | Jun 16, 2011, 03:24 PM EDT
Irish Government should be very ashamed if they just limit their probe into the Magdalenes situation. It was shamwfull for the Irish to be so run over by a greater power and now thye gov won't give them justice!!!!!!11
Porickseantuny | Jun 16, 2011, 02:37 PM EDT
Magdalene laundries benefited hospitals hence the ill of Ireland. Forced servitude yes. But monetary benefit to the Church no.
Porickseantuny | Jun 16, 2011, 02:36 PM EDT
The church did not benefit. Mostly the hospitals for whom the Magdalenes toiled benefited, hence the ill in Ireland. Forced servitude yes. Benefit to the Church negligible.
oldboreen | Jun 16, 2011, 02:08 PM EDT
Let's get this straight before the enquiry gets underway.Yes the church will have a great deal to answer for-but so will Irish society in general. We all knew of the abuse but we chose to ignore it!! It is as much Ireland's shame as it the church's.
Searlit | Jun 16, 2011, 12:45 PM EDT
Now there is a glimmer of hope for these much maligned women. Thank God!
akellyny | Jun 16, 2011, 12:11 PM EDT
Who benefitted from this slave labor? The catholic church of course!
dwelleronthe | Jun 16, 2011, 10:57 AM EDT
Who benefited from this slave labor?