THE GOVERNMENT will consider new evidence detailing State involvement in the referral of women to Magdalene laundries in the 1960s before it decides whether to provide redress to former inmates.The decision yesterday by Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe follows an admission by Department of Justice officials this week that women were transferred following court appearances to a church-run asylum on Sean McDermott Street, Dublin, during the 1960s.
Justice for Magdalenes, a group representing survivors, said the admission and evidence it has found in the national archives, which shows State complicity in referrals to church-run asylums, should prompt Mr O’Keeffe to retract his previous “assertion that the State did not refer individuals to Magdalene laundries”.
He should also issue an apology on behalf of the State to former inmates and provide redress for victims of abuse at the institutions, said Dr James Smith, a researcher at Boston College-Ireland who unearthed the archival evidence.
In September Mr O’Keeffe said the State was not complicit in the referral of women to Magdalene laundries and former residents were therefore not eligible for compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board.
The redress board was set up by the Government to make awards to persons who, as children, were abused while resident in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to State regulation or inspection.
But the board does not cover the Magdalene laundries, which were never regulated or inspected by State agencies. This has left former laundry inmates without access to redress, according to the Justice for Magdalenes group.
A spokesman for Mr O’Keeffe last night said it was his understanding that the Department of Justice officials did not directly contradict the Minister. But he said the Minister would consider the new evidence.
“The information now being referred to by the group wasn’t available when the Minister for Education and Science issued his letter on September 4th, 2009,” said the spokesman in a statement. A Department of Justice spokesman confirmed yesterday they now knew and accepted that a number of women charged with criminal offences were remanded in one Magdalene laundry under arrangements made by the Department of Justice.
A number of women convicted of criminal offences were also given the alternative of going to prison or a Magdalene laundry by the courts, said the spokesman.
However, it is understood the Government still believes most Magdalene women were not referred to the asylums by the State and therefore may not be covered by any future redress board.
Dr Smith, who presented the new evidence of State referral to TDs yesterday at the Dáil, said the Government now had a duty to apologise to former inmates, provide redress to survivors and persuade the Catholic Church to publish its records on inmates.
“Many of the survivors of the laundries are old women so we hope the State acts fast,” said Dr Smith, who noted some inmates are still living in convents today.
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