Magdalene redress refusals to be reversed

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan will brief Cabinet today of his intention to fully implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations on the Magdalene laundries redress scheme.

Last November, the Ombudsman, Peter Tyndall, published a scathing a report into the scheme, which found that the Department of Justice had wrongly refused some Magdalene laundry survivors access to redress payments.

The report made a number of recommendations, the key one being that the department fully reconsider, with a view to accepting, the applications of women who worked in one of the listed Magdalene laundries but who were recorded as having been “admitted” to a training centre or industrial school in the same building, attached to or located on the grounds of the laundry.