IRELAND
Irish Times
PATSY McGARRY
It is doubtful if anyone else could have achieved what Martin McAleese did this week: the completion in 18 months of a 1,000-page report, plus appendices, on State involvement with the Magdalene laundries.
It cost €11,000 in expenses, plus the salaries of seven civil servants – a fraction of the millions spent on each of four statutory reports on abuse since 2005.
The McAleese committee was also dependent entirely on voluntary co-operation, unlike those other inquiries. He won and sustained that co-operation from disparate parties.
There were woman who had been in the laundries; their representative groups; the four religious congregations who ran the laundries; and representatives of six Government departments.
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