IRELAND
Independent
06 February 2013
WHEN Taoiseach Enda Kenny stood up in the Dail yesterday afternoon he had the look of a man who wished he was somewhere else. Soon it was clear why. He wasn’t about to deliver the fulsome apology to the Magdalene Laundry victims that the country expected.
The failure of the State to say sorry to the thousands of women who suffered harsh conditions over seven decades in Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries has outraged many. Retribution was being sought by the ‘inmates’ of these harsh institutions, and their families.
The report into the Magdalene Laundries was to be the women’s day, their vindication, and the time for the State to put its hands up to verify and reaffirm stories we have heard over the years of the suffering they have endured.
There are undoubtedly legal reasons why the Taoiseach was guarded and didn’t make an outright apology. His own backbenchers were said to be upset and puzzled by his omission. One can assume that one of the reasons he didn’t go further was that it would open the flood gates when it comes to the question of compensation.
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