Don’t hold your breath waiting for redress

For more than 200 years, from the 18th century to the late 20th century, so-called ‘fallen’ women and their children endured the horrors of the Magdalene laundries. 

The State’s redress scheme was supposed to offer a compassionate response as well as some form of compensation for the suffering of modern day survivors of those hideous institutions.

But, as a scathing report by Ombudsman Peter Tyndall reveals, the Department of Justice operated as a force for injustice in how it administered the scheme designed to compensate women who were admitted to, or worked in, institutions and Magdalene laundries.