IRELAND
Deutsche Welle
Around 30,000 women and girls experienced slave-like conditions in asylums called Magdalene laundries. The Irish government admitted complicity. DW talks to the co-founder of Justice for Magdalene, who’s demanding more.
DW: How did Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny respond when news broke about the laundries?
Claire McGettrick: A committee was tasked with establishing state involvement with the Magdalene laundries – and that has been proven, without question. But what the prime minister has done is read a series of statistics which, frankly, felt like it was a minimization of what had happened.
Why do you think he was reluctant to give an apology?
There are so few women. Probably less than 1,000 are still alive. It’s no skin off his nose to not put this right immediately.
But the problem is this “floodgate situation,” and that’s really what they’re afraid of. The fear is that orphanages and psychiatric institutions are all going to come forward, too. That’s not a good reason to deny Magdalene survivors, or survivors of other institutions, what is due to them.
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