The Government needs to act on that. A lot of women were forced to work long hours and very little rest. In these Laundries. They deserve recognition like the redress for what they went through a lot of hardship and many of them were scared by their experiences It should never have happened shame on the state who were just as responsible as the reglious orders for the way these women were treated..Many of these women are no longer with us and for those that are it is time their plight is recognised.

I recommend you all visit http://www.magdalenelaundries.com to find out exactly what we have laid out in terms of restorative justice and reparations before jumping to conclusions. Lest we forget, the Laundries were privately-run commercial enterprises. The last laundry closed on October 25, 1996. Women were not paid for the labour they performed, nor did they receive pensions for this work. Conditions were harsh and they were not inspected as any other like institution would be. Women frequently died from conditions — exposure to chemicals, related cancers, work injuries. They were also not free to discourse or associate with each other or leave under their own accord. They were subject to abuse — physical, sexual and mental. And we have proven State complicity in remanding women through the courts and via industrial schools and mother-baby homes (which were State-regulated institutions). By the late 1960’s, remaining Laundries were receiving State capitation grants. We are not asking the State to pony up for any restorative justice (the onus is on the religious orders) unless the remand was via the State. If we ‘leave it in the past’ we risk repeating history. We must do what’s right and acknowledge and heal this small, aging population, as well as honor those who died within Laundry walls, often lying in unmarked graves. And lest we forget, it was often society itself that relegated its mothers, grannies, aunts, and sisters to these gulags. So is up to all of us to make it right. Denis Walsh and Jerry Slattery, you should be ashamed of yourselves. But then it is exactly that misogynistic attitude that gave free rein to Ireland’s architecture of containment, particularly as it applied to women.

People who say that we shouldn’t have public inquiries because they’re too expensive are amongst the most despicable anti-democrats to be found on the planet.

I am shocked that a question mark would hang over, restorative justice and reparation for the people who where held captive and suffered so much in the Magdelene Laundries. A country on its uppers is not excuse for not addressing these issues, and more to the point why have they taken so long to be addressed in the first place.

Why weren’t these women compensated by the us as a nation in the good times, why were they ignored when they should have, at the very least, been financially compensated for their pain and suffering, the loss of the liberty and auautonomy.

I know its not the same circumstances, but you look at the news(althoug very little coverage is given) and see issue such as the plight of young people and staff in Special Care Units like Ballydowd and Gleann Alainn in Ireland; the Higher Echelons of power being constantly criticised for ignoring the plight of these children, the Minister for Children saying things are looking promising when they have hardly changed at all; HIQA report after report with little changing and people seriously suggest we shouldn’t keep looking to our past – crazy

We need as a country to be constantly reminded of our past and how good we are as a nation at ignoring what we choose not to see.

IMO the survivors of the Magdelene Laundries should serve as a constant reminder to us, that when children and adults are in extremely vunerable positions, our government are very slow to act and quick to gloss over the issues.

Fire a lock of itching powder into the Governments suits!

Leave it in the past? It’s comments like this that show how much Ireland needs to be disillusioned.

As long as Ireland is under the control of the Rotten Roman Catholic Church and the EVIL JESUITS who control the Holy See there will never be a proper enquiry or decent compensation for victims of the Evil RCC.

it was a stigma made on us women for life ..we lost our families our siblings . to this day i do not have family … in law yes i had 6 brothers and 3 sisters and i was 10 .. but in church law i have noone now . but you get over it least i did i dont believe in their religious teachings any more and hate the ground they walk on . there the ones need locking up . this is my hell they have yet to go to theirs ..

Justice Should Be Done, For My Mother, Whom I Never Seen, I was Born in 1971 along with a twin, whom I never Seen until I was age 16 through a social worker from Barnardo’s who helped me track down my family tree. I never seen my twin till I was 16 years old, living in a flat send out to survive and live on my own in Ballymun, then in 1995, an unmarked Grave of one of the Bodies who was my mum, They stole her identity and took her name away from her, and gave her a new name, Mary Kelly, She was send away, to Madge lines Home, because she was raped by an army at the age of Fifteen, as punishment for Having a Child out of Wed lock, through no fault of her own, aged 15 and the army man was 20 years old, My mum’s death on Certificate, Un known Death, Broken ribs, hair line fracture in scull, and some old injuries, of broken bones, tell me where the Justice in That< the State were just as responsible as the Nuns or Perpetrators who murdered My mum, Died age 28 years old, spent 13 years in Madge lines Home in A laundry slavering her guts out, and was abused physically and Mentally, I shall never Forgive The State Government who were FF then, or the nuns who inflicted so much pain on my mum for years, she suffered and I blame the Catholic Church and The States for the lost of my mum, my Twin and I are ant- Catholics now, we never go to church, I despise the religion order, as I grew up in a residential home and suffered the same abuse, beaten, locked up in toy presses, hospitalised with head injuries, I have my freedom of info including Vaccine Child Abuse, which I Have in B&W on medical, I was Born later that the ones in 50’s or 60’s so my abuse in the Residential home was as I remembered in 1974 when I was only 4 years old, for thirteen years. Luckily my Twin was adopted, because she was healthy, I was the Sick one, suffered Respiratory Breathing Difficulties, well enough said, Rita Cahill

If we cannot reflect on our history , we cannot acknowledge the wrongs, if we cannot acknowledge the wrongs, we cannot learn what is right, and then the institutional abuses of the past will continue.

sure that’s all we need another full public inquiry just as mahon is closing up let’s start the gravy train all over again . it will cost a couple of hundred million but keep talk shows the legal set and the abuse groups on riches for years to come