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MEMBERS OF THE Magdalene Survivors Together group will today meet with President Michael D Higgins at Áras on Uachtaráin.
Spokesperson for the group, Steven O’Riordan said that it would be “a great way to wrap up all the hard work that I and the woman have done with regard to the Magdalene Laundries”.
O’Riordan and the women will meet with the President at around 2.30 at the Áras, where they will spend over an hour on this visit.
Commenting ahead of the visit, Kathleen Legg, survivor of the Sisters of Charity Laundry said:
This is a great day for me as I’ll be turning 80 this year. All the hard work we did has paid off. I travelled from the UK to be here today. I have been travelling from the UK for the last 4 years. I have battled cancer to be here today. This day is the day to enjoy for all of us. I know there are women unhappy with the proposed scheme but I don’t worry because we will fix that. This day is our day and what a day it will be.
The redress scheme for the women who were in the Magdalene Laundries will see women receiving payments of up to €100,000 depending on the length of their stay. However some of the women have said they are deeply unhappy with the compensation package with those who spent three months or less in the laundries receiving just over €11,000.
Mary Smyth, survivor of The Good Shepherd Magdalene Laundry said the group is “just getting started”.
“There’s a monument to be built and a memorial and museum to be designed,” she added. “The story of the Magdalene women will live on forever.”
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Give them what they are entitled to,they have been through hell and survived…well done to them for fighting this.
Catherine
Whilst I agree there should be compensation. Surely Church and State are different. Should the Catholic church not be making recompense?
‘While the State paid €1.5bn on a Redress Scheme for the survivors who merited its apology – much of it on lawyers’ fees – “the Magdalenes” as they came to be known, were virtually ignored.’ RTE report
I find it difficult to believe that the state are paying this plus enhanced medical cards and extra pension on top of paying into the Redress Scheme.
‘Critically, although the laundries were owned and run by four religious congregations of nuns, the State was directly involved with the institutions. The McAleese Report detailed four cross-overs in addition to the previously mentioned responsibility the State bore for about a quarter of all fully recorded admissions:
State inspections and State funding of the laundries; State involvement in the routes by which women left the institutions; and its role in death registration, burials and exhumations.’ RTE report
Where is the recompense from the Catholic Church??
The protestants started this organisation for waifs and strays and fallen women but the Catholic Church took advantage – I am sure the State inspectors saw what those running the Laundries wanted them to see (much like any corporation today shows the Health and Safety Executive of today.
Ok there may have been inspectors who turned a blind eye for kick backs, but given the current economic climate why does the State have to foot the bill for the failure of the Catholic Church.
I also feel that the metric for payments is not at all fair. Of course the Govt. answer throw money at it and it will go away raises its ugly head again.
God, the front of the Áras looks like the back of a bus.
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