Chrysalis

Today saw the report of the McAleese Report on the Magdalene Laundry’s. A day that many have waited their entire lives for, a day that is only here because of the embarrassing insistence of the United Nations. A day that seems to have fallen well short of expectations and a day that saw a weak response and no apology on behalf of the State and the Irish people to those who suffered.
Instead we saw An Taoiseach take a question in the Dail from Sinn Fein on the issue. He began with a factual tone, explaining that in fact the figure quoted in conversation of residents being in the region of 30,000 was more like 10,000. This was easily explained you see many had re-admittance over a period, so that’s ok isn’t it? He started his first public utterances on this serious emotional and human problem by clearing up an accounting error, shameful.
In true leadership style he then went on to state that there was in fact no record of sexual abuse in any of these horrible places of incarceration. This statement unprompted made me a little uncomfortable as it has no relevance to the claims of emotional and physical abuse suffered by residents, the truth of which is evident from the harrowing personal stories they have had to re-live across various media in order to bring attention to their case.
He continued by telling Deputy McDonald that she should maybe read the report before assuming too much. Again maybe it was just me but I felt a distinct sense of menace in his delivery, was he intimating that maybe the report had made findings that exonerated State involvement and by inference responsibility for compensation? We know it doesn’t so what was he getting at? Maybe setting us up for the Governments attempt to avoid compensation?
His next salvo was to say that only approximately 25% of residents were sent by organs of the State. Which begs the question what was he really getting at earlier? Well sorry but working with Mad Pride Ireland and dealing with the intricacies of the Mental Health Act I have seen all too often how easy it is to manoeuvre in this area. The report clearly points toward State involvement and collusion in this regard and it was not the time for equivocation.
Today should have been a day when our leader stood up on all our behalves and said how truly sorry we all are that this was allowed to happen to any other citizen of the State. I remember my father telling me stories of the ‘Maggies’ parading past the North Cathedral in Cork when he was a boy. Walking in file like prisoners on an outing under the gaze of their keepers and the ridicule of the rest. Stigma will always be attached to those who lived through this ordeal so long as they are not given an unreserved apology we all, whether we ‘knew’ or not, owe them. We owe them that much.
This all seems so reminiscent of the State’s approach to other scandals like child sex abuse, corruption and all the others where we saw obfuscation and avoidance as the first approach soon to be followed by admission and then a resolution. It looks like we are in for the same pointless approach again here. Would it not be simpler to look on this not as Minister Shatter said on RTE News ‘a very complicated’ situation and instead react humanly and think first of the victims and worry about the rest later.
I won’t hold my breath!