Commissioner Prof Siobhán Mullally outlined the main recommendations of the IHRC report published today as:
-
“that the State now put in place a system of redress” for women who had
been in the laundries. This should take into account “lost wages and
any pension or social protection benefits” lost;
-
it should ”review its interactions with non-State actors, where such
private entities exercise any State function or provide any service on
behalf of the State...”;
- it must “ensure, in accordance with its
international human rights obligtions, that all credible allegations of
abuse....are promptly, thoroughly and independently investigated”;
-
give consideration “to addressing the gender specific language of
Article 41.2 of the Constitution, to address the persistence of
stereotypical attitudes towards women and girls.”
(Article
41.2.1 reads “ In particular, the State recognises that by her life
within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the
common good cannot be achieved.”
41.2.2 continues
“The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not
be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of
their duties in the home.)
Prof Mullally noted
that the IHRC report also called for “domestic equality legislation to
be amended, so that it more closely reflects the State’s international
human rights obligations.”