On 5 February 2013, the Irish Taioseach and cabinet received the results of an independent committee's report on State involvement in the Magdalene Laundries -- and it was clearly shown the State was involved at every level. The time is now for the State and Church to issue a formal apology and begin a robust, transparent restorative justice and compensation process, as recommended by the UN and Justice for Magdalenes.
But so too the Irish people and the world at large must apologise. Apologise to women who were stripped of their human rights up until 1996, and who continue to live with the shame and stigma of believing they had done some wrong. Take a moment and in your own words, poems, etc., please share your own apology on behalf of Irish families, friend and neighbours who either sent their own relations to these institutions, or who were complicit in their silence and for failing to do right by these women. "All it takes for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke.
Dear Taoiseach: The people of Ireland and people around the world wholeheartedly and unreservedly apologise to the women who suffered in Irish Magdalene Laundries, and to the children many of these women lost. Will you do the same, Taoiseach?
