Magdalene laundries - Pay up now

Catholics, and many who are not, must be heartily weary of the never-ending litany of cases involving people abused by clerics.

Just yesterday a man abused by a Christian Brother in the 1980s was awarded €370,000 in a case that revealed extreme cruelty.

Part of reconciling the horrors of the past with the possibility of the future is acknowledging a debt and then discharging it.

It is therefore very unfortunate that so many women who suffered well-documented hardship in the Magdalene laundries are still waiting for compensation promised by the State.

The money is important but the vindication it represents may be even more important to people who suffered so much and were for so very long disbelieved.