The Department of Justice failed to examine all available evidence when it wrongly refused some Magdalene laundry survivors access to redress payments.

Magdalene campaigners have questioned why a State apology was given to laundry survivors when the Government denies the State has any liability in the matter.

The Justice For Magdalenes Research (JFMR) group has written to the Ombudsman expressing its long-held concerns over the Magdalene redress scheme.

Campaigners have called on the Government to start excavations at other mother and baby home sites after Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said she is in favour of such a move.

Mother and baby home campaigners have said as many as 180 institutions that dealt with unmarried mothers and children need to be examined by the commission.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission has yet to decide whether to ask for an extension of its remit to examine other institutions.

The McAleese report is “neither accurate nor respectful” in the suffering women endured in Magdalene laundries, it has been claimed.

The Bishop of Cork and Ross has backed the calls of campaigners to make the vandalised mass grave of Magdalene women at Sunday’s Well accessible to the public.

Justice For Magdalenes Research (JFMR) has hit back at Government claims that it is issuing “factually incorrect” statements on the implementation of the Magdalene redress scheme.

Just 33 out of 187 Magdalene women listed on the headstone for High Park laundry in Glasnevin Cemetery are actually buried at that location, a study claims.

Just 72 of the almost 500 Magdalene survivors who have accepted redress will get the maximum amount of €100,000.

Magdalene campaigners and human rights groups have hit out at the Government’s legislation as “unacceptable, unfair and full of broken promises”.

Over 1,600 women died in Magdalene laundries — more than double the figure cited by the McAleese report.

The terms of reference for the mother-and-baby home inquiry will be published following the first Cabinet meeting in the new year.

The Government was “conscious of the danger” of offering redress for Magdalene survivors just months before setting up the McAleese inquiry to investigate the issue.

Magdalene women are being forced accept smaller compensation payments because the State believes the religious orders over survivors regarding how long they spent in the laundries.

A grave just discovered by the Justice for Magdalenes group shows that, in one plot in North Dublin alone, a third of the woman buried remained at the Magdalene laundry for more than 50 years.

New research has cast "serious doubt" on one of the key findings of the McAleese report concerning the length of time women spent in Magdalene laundries.

Four social justice organisations are now calling for the inquiry into mother-and-baby homes to be widened to include Magdalene laundries and county homes.

Survivors of Magdalene laundries will begin to receive enhanced pensions and weekly top-up payments from the Department of Social Protection in the coming week, as part of the redress package designed by Mr Justice John Quirke.

Adoption, children’s and human rights organisations have welcomed the decision by the Department of Children to set up a statutory commission to investigate practices, deaths, illegal adoptions and vaccine trials at the country’s mother-and-baby homes.

Sixteen survivors of the Magdalene Laundries have sought a review of the amount of compensation they have been offered by the State.

Two of the four Orders which ran the Magdalene laundries have reaffirmed their refusal to offer any financial contribution to the compensation fund for survivors.