The Government has been told that its refusal to commission an
independent investigation into the treatment of women in Magdalene
Laundries is an issue that is “not going to go away”. In May, the vice-chair of the UN Committee Against Torture criticised the McAleese report as “incomplete” and lacking “many elements of a prompt, independent, and thorough investigation”.
However, in a response from the Department of Justice in August, the Government said the McAleese report “disproved” many of the assumptions held about the Magdalene Laundries.
It criticised 800 pages of survivor testimony provided by Justice for Magdalenes, stating “many of the general allegations relied on reports unsupported by any direct knowledge and were not supported by the facts un-covered by the McAleese committee”.
Speaking after the meeting with the UN Human Rights Committee, Stephen O’Hare of the ICCL said the need for an independent investigation of the Magdalene Laundry issue was “not going to go away”.
“The ICCL anticipates that the Government will face some searching questions on this, and a range of other hot topics identified in our briefing paper, when it appears before the Human Rights Committee next year,” said Mr O’Hare.
Human rights lawyer and member of Justice for Magdalenes Research Maeve O’Rourke said the Government was wrong to accept the McAleese report as a “comprehensive and objective” report of the facts regarding the Magdalene Laundries.
“It was not an independent investigation,” said Ms O’Rourke. “There was no public call for evidence, the McAleese Committee had no powers to compel evidence from the religious orders, and there was no transparency.
“It is deeply troubling that the Government does not understand forced labour of thousands of girls and women to amount to systematic abuse, warranting independent investigation.”