Women claim ‘unreasonable’ exclusion from Magdalene scheme

By Mary Carolan
Irish Times
January 25, 2017

https://goo.gl/7b2pQz

The plaque dedicated to Magdalene Laundry survivors in St Stephens Green in Dublin. Photo by Niall Carson

Two women who claim they were forced, while attending industrial schools, to work in Magdalene laundries have alleged unreasonable exclusion from a State compensation scheme.

Due to their exclusion on a “technicality” from the scheme concerning the laundries, the women view the Taoiseach’s apology over the treatment of those who worked in them as “hollow”, counsel Michael Lynn SC said.

They are suing the Minister for Justice in proceedings that opened in the High Court on Wednesday before Mr Justice Michael White.

The women claim that while attending industrial schools run by religious orders in the 1970s and 1980s, they were forced to work in Magdalene laundries which, they allege, were linked to those schools.

One of the women was aged just two when she was taken from her family for reasons unknown to her and placed in a school. She was then sent to work in a laundry for periods, the court heard.

The second woman claims that, also while placed in a school, she worked in two different laundries at various times between the age of eight and 18. The claim relates to institutions including An Grianán training centre and St Mary’s Refuge Laundry, both formerly located at High Park, Drumcondra, Dublin. It also relates to St Dominic’s school and another laundry, both formerly located at Cork Road, Waterford.

Separate institutions

The Department of Justice’s Restorative Justice Unit found that An Grianán and St Dominic’s were separate institutions from the laundries.

Both women claim they were unreasonably refused compensation on foot of such findings. They allege the schools and laundries were “one and the same” and contend that the HSE had gathered evidence to that effect.

Both maintain they are in the same position as other women who have lived with the “stigma” of working in Magdalene laundries.

In an affidavit, one of the women said, as a child, she was forced to work in the laundries without pay, abused and neglected and “treated like a slave”. She wanted “recognition as a Magdalene woman and a recognition by official Ireland that what happened to me was wrong”.

The Minister and her officials had “deliberately” offered an interpretation of the scheme “at variance” with the Taoiseach’s apology, she claimed.

The second woman said the Residential Institutions Redress Board had wrongly rated 8 out of a possible 25 the abuse she suffered.

In opposing the action, the Minister rejects the claims the women were denied compensation on a “technicality” and pleads they were excluded because they did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the ex gratia compensation scheme concerning Magdalene laundries.

It also says the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme was set up to cover those who suffered abuse in such institutions, and the Magdalene Laundry Scheme is entirely different.

Rendered ineligible

Among various pleas, the Minister says the fact one or both women may have carried out some work at certain laundries after school or on Saturdays, at times both were resident in industrial schools, does not render them eligible for compensation for that work.

The scheme was not established to compensate for alleged forced labour or loss of earnings in the laundries, but rather as part of a scheme of healing and reconciliation and to express the sincere nature of the State’s “reconciliatory intent”, the court heard.

The case continues.