IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Ann O’Loughlin
A woman who claims she was forced to work unpaid in a Magdalene laundry for 10 years has challenged the minister for justice’s decision excluding her from the State’s redress scheme for victims of those institutions.
The woman claims she was used as forced and unpaid labour from the age of eight to 18 at two laundries, in Waterford and Dublin, during the 1970s and early 1980s.
She had applied to be included in the redress scheme established in 2013 to compensate survivors of the Magdalene laundries but her application was turned down on the grounds that, at the relevant time, she was a resident of industrial schools and not the laundries themselves.
Michael Lynn, counsel for the woman, said the minister had, in her refusal, told the woman she should have sought compensation under the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme. However, his client, because she lives abroad, did not hear about that scheme in time, and her application for inclusion in it was refused as being out of time.
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