Campaigners urge council not to accept bid for Magdalene laundry as 9,000 sign petition to stop sale

More than 9,200 people signed a petition calling on Dublin City Council to call a halt to its plans to sell off the Magdalene laundry site to a Japanese hotel chain.

Tokyo Inn has offered the local authority €14.5m for the two-acre site and plans to build to a 350-bed hotel, student accommodation, and shops. It also plans to build 60 apartments for social housing. The plans also include a permanent memorial to the women who worked in the laundry until its closure in 1996.