It's highly unlikely that the distressed
hand-wringing from politicians will change the decision of the religious
orders not to contribute to the Magdalene Laundries redress scheme.
Of course, the fact that the sisters have maintained a steely
silence on the latest controversy, choosing instead to refer to past
statements, makes it largely impossible for the general public to
understand where they're coming from.
In private the nuns who were involved are more than willing to share their views.
The report into the laundries by Senator Martin McAleese was seen by the orders as offering a comprehensive picture of the complex involvement between church, State and the wider society that led to appalling situation where thousands of women were committed to these institutions.
And the opening line of the McAleese Report is one frequently cited by the nuns: "there is no single or simple story of the Magdalene Laundries".
This, the nuns argue, proves that the issues at stake are more nuanced than simply asking the orders to hand over half of the estimated €58m cost of the Government's redress plans.
I don't speak for the nuns, nor am I an apologist for the mistreatment suffered by the women in the laundries.
But I know from talking to the sisters that they believe there is a wider context.
They point to the fact that a quarter of women were committed by the State and a significant number were sent to the laundries by their families.
The McAleese Report reveals that there were also instances when women went themselves voluntarily to the institutions, that the average stay as a laundry was seven months, and that more than 60pc of women spent a year or less there.
Who should compensate women who went voluntarily or were sent by their families? Should the State? Should the religious orders?
They also insist that they have been supporting some of the former residents on an ongoing basis, long before the Government considered its own responsibility.
The questions turns to whether or not the orders can actually afford to pay in to redress.
There isn't a uniform answer. It's likely that some of the orders could afford to and others couldn't.
Many
of the sisters are elderly and themselves in need of expensive nursing
home care. A 2010 review found that the average age of a Sister of Mercy
was 74.
For the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, it was 78. But money is a secondary concern.
The
laundries were, according to the McAleese Report, "by today's
standards, a harsh and physically demanding work environment". Who could
argue with that?
Magdalene Laundries were the product of a society steeped in petty snobbery.
An Ireland of squinting windows where people who didn't fit the mould of an unrealistic idyll were to be hidden from view.
A
glimpse into the widespread culture of the time can be gleaned from a
1921 letter by WT Cosgrave, then Minister for Local Government.
Those in
institutions, he wrote, "are no great acquisition to the community and
they have no ideas whatever of civic responsibilities.
As a rule their
highest aim is to live at the expense of the ratepayers. Consequently,
it would be a decided gain if they all took it into their heads to
emigrate".
The nuns argue, rightly or wrongly, that it
fell to them to pick up the pieces.
The Conference of Religious of
Ireland (Cori) summed up the mood among many nuns responding to the
McAleese Report that "it is important that we, as religious, acknowledge
the part we played in the entire issue, and it is also important that a
system which had the support of many sectors of our society is not now
presented as a matter only for religious – if the necessary healing and
reconciliation is to be found".
Of course, all this may
seem like a moot point for the now elderly women who were
institutionalised in the laundries, many of whom see redress and
compensation as a concrete expression of the fact that what happened to
them was wrong.
More than 130 of these women are still being cared for by the orders.
The
four orders involved are under no legal obligation to contribute and
despite huge moral pressure, I very much doubt that the sisters will
budge from their stance based in part on principle and part on financial
constraints.
Expediency and reputation-management might dictate otherwise, but the nuns don't really do PR.