A group of dentists has hit out at what it claims is the Government’s “failure to honour” promises made to Magdalene laundry survivors on medical care.

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.

The HSE will reissue medical cards sent to Magdalene survivors after complaints they identified the women as having been in a laundry.

Magdalene laundry survivors have been told they can still apply for redress and avail of special medical cards.

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

Campaigners have called for vaccine trials to be included in the upcoming mother and baby home inquiry, after it emerged a previously unknown fifth trial was carried out on children here in the 1960s.

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.

Many adopted people believe that successive governments have refused to offer basic tracing and information rights until most victims of Ireland’s forced and illegal adoptions have died.

An extensive critique of the McAleese Report into the Magdalene laundries could be published by the year end, according to the Justice for Magdalenes (JFM).

Half of the women at one Magdalene laundry in the 1950s and 1960s never left the institution again but died years later behind the convent walls, according to research which strongly contradicts the Martin McAleese report.

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.

Kathleen Whelan was one of about a dozen former Magdalene laundry survivors who travelled to Cork’s City Hall to meet the Lord Mayor as he signed a book of apologies for the women.

The Adoption Rights Alliance is considering going to the United Nations in order to force the State to grant adopted people the same rights as every other Irish citizen.

Justice for Magdalenes have questioned how the Government can pass legislation to liquidate a bank in a matter of hours but need yet more time to issue an apology to Magdalene survivors.

Campaigners fear many of the survivors of the Magdalene laundries will be dead before the State compensates the estimated 1,000 women who were locked up by the nuns.

Survivors of the Magdalene Laundries have appealed to the Government not to allow another year go by without redress for their suffering.

The needs of communities across Ireland must be heart of any plans for economic recovery, local groups warned today.

AS the campaign to improve the rights of adopted people gathers momentum, one of the founders of the Adoption Rights Alliance has written to the Minister for the Children reminding him how every day of her life is spent fighting for those whose rights are being routinely denied.

A FIERCE wind drove coarse, dirty sand across the Freedom Park township in Cape Town throughout the weekend, caking a layer of grime over skin, clogging ears and turned the snot in your nose jet black.

AdoptionIreland has today called for the resignation Sharon O'Driscoll from the Adoption Board, claiming that a conflict of interest exists.

THE future of Tolka Rovers men’s basketball team will be decided this morning when club representatives meet Basketball Ireland, but coach Martin McGettrick was doubtful yesterday evening if he would have any further role with the club.