Magdalene Laundries Survivors Reject Apology

The Telegraph UNITED KINGDOM
February 5, 2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/9850882/Magdalene-Laundries-survivors-reject-apology.html

The 2002 film 'The Magdalene Sisters' depicted life in the Magdalene Laundries.

Survivors of the Magdalene Laundries have rejected an apology from the Irish prime minister about the conditions in the church-run laundries where women and girls toiled.

Enda Kenny, Ireland's prime minister, said he was sorry thousands of women had to live in austere conditions in the convent-run institutions after a report said the state was responsible for sending many women and girls to the laundries.

“To those residents who went into the Magdalene Laundries through a variety of ways, 26pc from state intervention or state involvement, I am sorry for those people that they lived in that kind of environment,” Mr Kenny said in parliament in Dublin today.

“I want to see that those women who are still with us, anywhere between 800 and 1000 at max, that we should see that the state provides for them with the very best of facilities and supports that they need in their lives.”

But, survivors quickly rejected his apology and demanded a fuller and more frank admission from government and the religious orders involved.

Maureen Sullivan, of Magdalene Survivors Together, said: "That is not an apology. He is the Taoiseach of our country, he is the Taoiseach of the Irish people, and that is not a proper apology."

Mary Smyth said she endured inhumane conditions in a laundry, which she said was worse than being in prison.

"I will go to the grave with what happened. It will never ever leave me," said Ms Smyth, also of the group.

The prime minister's comments came as the Irish government published a report into the state's involvement with the Magdalene Laundries. The report found that 10,000 women spent time in the laundries and that more than a quarter of referrals were made by the state.

From the early 1920s to 1996, convents ran laundries in Ireland as businesses, while the women who worked there were said to go unpaid.

Women worked in the laundries sometimes for years and are thought to have included those who had fallen pregnant outside marriage, were the daughters of unmarried women, or who were considered a burden on their families.

Those who have spoken about their experiences talk of constantly washing laundry in cold water, of using heavy irons for hours, of close friendships being forbidden, and of never feeling free to leave.

Representatives of the congregations of nuns who ran the laundries have - in the past - described the Magdalene homes issue as a “a sad, complex and dark story of Irish society that extends over 150 years”.

Senator Martin McAleese, who led the government's inquiry, said in the introduction to his report: "Many of the women who met with the Committee - and particularly those who entered the Magdalen Laundries as young girls - experienced the Laundries as lonely and frightening places.

"For too long, they have been and have felt forgotten. Indeed for many of them, an inability to share their story in the years after their time in a Magdalen Laundry has only added to the confusion and pain they feel about that period in their lives."

"The women who were admitted to and worked in the Magdalen Laundries, whether for short or long periods of time since the foundation of the State, have for too long felt the social stigma of what was sometimes cruelly called the ‘fallen woman’. This is a wholly inaccurate characterisation, hurtful to them and their families, that is not borne out by the facts," he added.

The report identified five areas where there was direct involvement in the detention of women in ten laundries run by nuns:

- They were detained by courts, gardai, transferred by industrial or reform schools, rejected by foster families, orphaned, abused children, mentally or physically disabled, homeless teenagers or simply poor.

- Inspectors, known as "the suits" by the women, routinely checked conditions complied with rules for factories.

- Government paid welfare to certain women in laundries, along with payments for services.

- Women were also enabled to leave laundries if they moved to other state-run institutions such as psychiatric hospitals, county and city homes and in the company of police, probation, court or prison officers.

- The state also had a role in registering the death of a woman in a laundry.

Campaign group Justice for Magdalenes said it welcomed the report's central findings and said it ensured that it can no longer be claimed that these institutions were private and that the 'vast majority' of the girls and women entered voluntarily.

The group added that it is calling on the Irish government to establish a transparent and non-adversarial compensation process that includes the provision of pensions, lost wages, health and housing services.