Don’t forget the church in that statement. They were not innocent in anyway.

Agreed Vincent … but this who delaying debacle is another effort on the previous and current Governments part of delaying everything as long as Humanly possible. They are not going to put Nuns on trial, because, if they do, they will go on trial themselves.
Instead, many many years after the fact (like the Mahon Tribunal/Moriarty Tribunal… 10 years each, costing over 500,000,000.00 euro), no action was taken in response ….. No TDs or party leaders in prison …
This report will have exactly the same punch ,… it will say, lets make sure it never happens again, but let bygones be bygones … and offer some paltry compensation to the few victims still alive to see it.. The previous governments (including sitting TDs and ministers) will walk away unscathed, and not out of pocket … even though, it will cost the country millions and millions.

Every member of the Church hierarchy, who covered all the abuses up, have had no action taken against them either … Why do you think that is?

Cal1, where were you in 1996? Did you raise your voice to say stop ?

Declan, i was in America …. But, i take your point … unfortunately, i did not know that there were work houses back then … I did not know that escapees picked up by the Gardai, were returned without question… I did not know that the Politicians in the Dail all supported the work-houses.
Did you know what work houses were? Were you in he Dail back then?
The Politicians who supported these prisons, knew what they were. The work houses were in their constituencies … They would have visited them, looking for votes …. The Gardai would have had to make reports …
They are the ones who should be facing trial for allowing the victims to suffer their fate, we know that the clergy involved have either passed on, or moved on… That is the Churchs way …
Saying things like never again, is not going to work … People need to be brought to court over this.

Cal, I get your point. I left ireland in 1988. I was never aware of these places myself.
No offence to you.

Well said Cal1. Lets hope those poor women and their children get an apology at the minimum and those who committed and supported the acts of inhumane treatment get brought before justice.

Where the inmates of the Magdalene laundries allowed to vote? The inmates certainly weren’t paid a wage for their all-day-long labour. I doubt that the ruling sisters would have been charitable enough to allow them to cast a ballot.

Exactly sunshine, not to mention what this horrible organisation did to the natives of Canada. I feel bad actually saying that as I know there are decent men and women of the church who have generously given their lives to do genuine Gods work only to have it tainted by their ‘employers’.

The ‘decent’ men and women were/are well aware of what went on. That is reality.

Thanks for the links. As Dr. Brooke Magnanti points out, the inmates were referred to by a number and not by their name. The inmates were dehumanized from the moment they stepped inside the prison. I imagine this goes on in all human trafficking operations as well as in extermination camps.

Yes Ann, deny until they die The State perpetrated the imprisonment of these women. Some girls were sent there straight from industrial schools . Parish priests would put pressure on families to lock up a girl when they became pregnant or even raped, while men walked away scot free.

The “religious” such as priests, nuns, bishops and archbishops and cardinals, should be put on trial first. Then the politicians. As distasteful as this will sound to a lot of people, the politicians did not directly commit these atrocities. It was the “religious” who perpetrated these crimes against humanity.

I always wonder were all the money went beside the laundries the money for the children they robbed of the mothers

It’s not about money, it is about truth and justice for the women and their families.

Its not been a good few months for Ireland internationally. Broke economy, no debt deal, Kerry politicians wanting to legalise drink driving, Savita refused an abortion to save her life, horse meat in beef burgers scandal and now we are on the cusp of reports of more human torture and abuse with the Church & State colluding together to facilitate it.

With the exception of Healy-Rae all of the above scandals have FF/FG fingerprints all over them. Well done lads for embarrassing us internationally.