A planning application for the National Centre for Research and Remembrance at a former Magdalene laundry will be submitted after Easter, the Children's Minister has said.
In a letter to survivors on Thursday, Roderic O’Gorman said both he and the Taoiseach had “brought key documents to Government for approval” on the remembrance centre.
He added since public consultations began, the Government had received 220 responses.
The former Magdalene laundry on Sean McDermott Street in north inner-city Dublin will be converted into a national centre for research to remember Ireland’s institutions.
In the letter, Mr O’Gorman said: “It is anticipated that the next steps for the National Centre will be the submission of a planning permission application after Easter, and to continue with further detailed project planning.
"The initial public consultation on elements of the National Centre, which ran from July to September 2023, received almost 220 responses.
“The analysis of the responses is nearly complete and a report on them will be published shortly."
He said that will inform the ongoing work on the national centre and further consultations and engagement, particularly with survivors and former residents, will take place as the project progresses.
“Up-to-date information on the National Centre is available at www.gov.ie/nationalcentre".
Diane Croghan is one of the youngest Magdalenes to be incarcerated in the laundries.
Born into a mother and baby home in Co Wexford, she remained with her mother until she was taken into foster care at age three.
However, at just eight, a priest came to collect her, and she was driven to the Summerhill Laundry in Co Wexford where she remained until she ran away at 13.
At the time, both she and another girl climbed into a laundry basket and escaped before separating and Diane walked from Wexford to Dublin on her own.
The now 84-year-old believes the national centre is a move “in the right direction”.
“I went to see the laundry when an exhibition was on there a few years ago,” she said. “It was strange being in there, I was not in the Sean McDermott Street laundry, but they were all pretty much the same.
“It’s a place to remember and not to forget what happened. Some people don’t like it, that is their right to feel that way, but I think it is a good idea. I have gotten on with my life, I hold no grudges and I’ve moved on.
“But absolutely what went on was very wrong and people have a right to be angry and hurt."
In March 2022, the Government announced the development of a national centre to honour all those who were resident in industrial schools, Magdalene laundries, mother and baby and county home institutions, reformatories, and related institutions.
The campus will include the provision of social housing units, further and higher educational facilities, and facilities for family and parenting supports.
The repository of records related to institutional trauma in the 20th century is being led by the National Archives.