IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Victims groups have accused the McAleese committee of not being “transparent” by springing interviews on survivors without prior knowledge and weakening the inquiry by not issuing a public call for victims to come forward.
By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter
Prior to the Ryan Report into child abuse, the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, apologised to the residents of the industrial schools and then issued a public call for survivors to come forward. According to the victims groups, this led to a sharp increase in numbers coming forward.
Just over 118 survivors spoke to the committee, and 57 were still under the charge of the religious orders in nursing homes or sheltered housing.
Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) and Magdalene Survivors Together also both strongly refuted the report’s assertion there was no physical abuse in the laundries.
The report stated there was a marked difference between the regime in industrial schools and the laundries and that physical abuse did not take place in the laundries: “A large majority of the women who shared their stories with the committee said that they had neither experienced nor seen other girls or women suffer physical abuse in the Magdalene Laundries.”
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