By Dan Buckley and Claire O’Sullivan
Saturday, June 11, 2011
THE four religious congregations that ran the Magdalene houses in Ireland have agreed to help achieve justice for thousands of women who were forced to work in the laundries.
Acknowledging the workhouses as a “dark story of Irish society”, a joint statement issued on behalf of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, Religious Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy and the Good Shepherd Sisters includes a promise to assist any official investigation into the running of the homes.
The Government is under international pressure to establish a judicial inquiry following a call by a UN committee last Monday to investigate reports that women and girls sent to work in the laundries suffered widespread abuse.
The statement, issued through the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI), describes the issue as a “sad, complex and dark story of Irish society that extends over 150 years”. It continues: “As the religious congregations, who, in good faith, took over and ran 10 Magdalene homes during part or most of that time and as congregations still in relationship with many residents and former residents, we are willing to participate in any inquiry that will bring greater clarity, understanding, healing and justice in the interests of all the women involved.”
The statement was welcomed by groups seeking justice for the women, in particular the Justice for Magdalene (JFM) group. Spokesman Professor Jim Smith called it “a positive first step”.
Next Tuesday, the Cabinet is due to discuss reports on the laundries by the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Geneva-based UN Committee Against Torture, both of which criticised the state’s failure to protect the women.
The UN panel’s report recommended that the Government “in appropriate cases, prosecute and punish the perpetrators with penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offences committed”.
Estimates put the numbers who passed through the laundries from 1922 to 1996 at 30,000.
Last night, JFM stressed it is not seeking a redress board-style legal adversarial process.
“JFM is very conscious of the current economic climate and we have no desire to propose anything that lines the pockets of Ireland’s legal profession,” Prof Smith said.
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, June 11, 2011
I agree that we should all live in the present. the best way to do this is to explain what such cruelty does. You know once these girls or women entered these places’ it had no more to do with the families than if thay had gone abroad. But it was the women in charge who made misery a daily event. Thier lives were dominated by women in black. And no prevision for thier elder years was made. in 1996 that is recent enough to matter. an apology would help them to move on.
I feel sad that this issue is seen as a money spinner for all concerned …these were different times …families were ashamed when their daughters became pregnant…they totally supported their daughters going into the magaladenes….and many families refused to take them out… these girls were the responsibility of their families but that was the way life was…for those who work with problem families to day they often say the institutions of yester year would be a God send in comparison with the life in a drug /alcohol addicted families…move on from the past …look after the present…
So the nuns now say thay want to help these ladies. well thay should be on thier knees before the women begging to be forgiven. thay used them for over 70 years to make money. so giving them thier back wages would be more honest.
So the Irish State never beleived that it would one day be held accountable to the international community for crimes of torture. Well it happened. This strengtens what Paddy Doyle has been pointing out for years, that real change will only happen when these crimes by the Roman Catholic Church are brought to The United Nations and Strasbourg . Ireland is hanged out as a state that financed and supported a Taliban regime long before anyone heard of the Taliban . These nuns risk in fact being hauled before courts for what UNCAT defines as torture and enslavement .
Why don’t the four religious congregations who incarcerated these innocent women and used them as slaves just disband themselves and financially help these women? That would be justice.
Why don’t the religious take responcibility for once. These organisations have such a brutal history. Why would they want to stay in exhistence? The last thing these surviving women need is help or healing from their persecutors. It would just be more abuse.
No more phony apologies, washing of feet or wounded healing. The truth needs to be told that sucessive Irish Governments since the founding of the State allowed this to happen and actively colluded with this great crime. Monstrous crimes were committed by the State and the nuns.
It’s a disgrace on Ireland that this had to be brought to the United Nations to get justice for these women. Remember that the Irish Government in setting up the Ryan report into institutional abuse excluded itself and all previous Governments from being investigated. Irish Governments were equally culpable as the religious in the crimes committed against children.
The Irish Government should be brought before the European court so that the truth can be revealed; meaning that every Government since the founding of the State were actively involved in financincg the Industrial schools. The Christian Brothers and some of the other violent Orders should have been disbanded and had their assets seized. That would have happened in any other country. The Magdalene women need justice now.