‘How could he not say sorry to us?’

Mary Smith met Enda Kenny in 2009. He was “practically crying” when he heard her story of being dumped in the Magdalene Laundry in Sunday’s Well, Cork by the “cruelty man”.

“I can’t believe you never saw your mother’s face,” he said to her, his face pained.

Fast forward four years and his reaction was entirely different. Now Taoiseach, Mr Kenny was “sorry that they lived in that kind of environment” but he was unable to make a heartfelt apology for the State’s role in their incarceration, a role that was confirmed in a report handed to him.