Magdalene girls were not ‘employees’

I CHALLENGE Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe’s use of the word “employee” in relation to women who were incarcerated in the Magdalene Laundries.

During my years of volunteering with the Justice for Magdalenes group I have had the honour of speaking to many Magdalene survivors about their time in the laundries and not one would describe herself as an “employee”.

I have yet to meet a survivor who said she was paid for her hard work or who said she entered a laundry voluntarily. The State’s abdication of responsibility in relation to the laundries is shameful.