Magdalene report: ‘There was a legal basis for way state operated’

IRELAND
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Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries

The committee set up to inquire into the Magdalene laundries has found clear evidence of state involvement in the religious run work houses.

However, it notes that there was a legal basis for the way the state operated.

The report, written under the chairmanship of Senator Martin McAleese, finds that more than a quarter of 10,000 women who entered the laundries were referred there by the state.

But it paints a more benign picture of life in the laundries than may be popularly believed.

Between 1922 and 1996 around 10,000 women are known to have entered Magdalen laundries, working for no pay in what were lonely and frightening places.

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