O’Keeffe under pressure to withdraw statement

MINISTER for Education Batt O’Keeffe was under pressure last night to admit that the state was involved in sending women to Magdalene Laundries after Department of Justice officials admitted to former Magdalene women that they and the Irish judiciary system sent women to the laundries.

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) say this information contradicts the Mr O’Keeffe’s controversial statement last September that the state “did not refer individuals nor was it complicit in referring individuals to Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries”. Responding last night, Mr O’Keeffe said this “information wasn’t available” when he issued his letter.

JFM say that senior Department of Justice officials confirmed to them at a meeting earlier this week that following publication of the 1960 Criminal Justice Bill, the department placed women “on remand” at the Sean McDermott Street Magdalene Laundry (also known as the Gloucester Street laundry). JFM say the department also paid a capitation grant for each of these referred women.

The Department of Justice last night confirmed courts have the “power to remand a person” and that in 1960, the then Minister for Justice approved the Sean McDermott Street Asylum as such an institution for women and also paid these grants.

Last night, JFM also said the Department of Justice has acknowledged that women were “routinely referred” to various Magdalene institutions by the court system following an arrangement between four religious congregations, the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, Good Shepherd Sisters and Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and the judiciary, namely court clerks and judges.

At a meeting between the Department of Justice and JFM on Monday, the former Magdalenes presented evidence that women were placed “on probation” at the laundries by the Irish Court Services. They claim that women were often “on probation” for up to three years.

“The Department of Justice officials stated that there was no legal basis supporting the courts’ use of these institutions to confine women and, likewise, that there was no legal basis for members of the Garda Síochána returning women who escaped from the laundry institutions,” said a JFM spokeswoman yesterday.

“We want the Minister for Justice to now demonstrate conclusively what became of each woman referred to the Magdalene Laundries either by the Department of Justice directly or via the judicial system. Moreover, we are asking that the Minister for Justice request from the four religious congregations all records related to these women.”

In light of these revelations, JFM has demanded that Mr O’Keeffe retract his statement last September that the “state did not refer individuals to Magdalene Laundries nor was it complicit in referring individuals to them“.