Dublin South West\u00a0Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has\u00a0called on\u00a0the religious orders to step up to the plate\u00a0and\u00a0pay their\u00a0fair\u00a0share\u00a0to the Magdalene Redress scheme.<\/p>\n
His comments follow those of\u00a0his party leader, Gerry Adams, who also\u00a0raised the issue of the Magdalene laundries issue\u00a0with Taoiseach Enda Kenny.<\/p>\n
Crowe said it is this issue of possible\u00a0liability that is clearly motivating the four religious orders in their refusal to make a financial contribution to the redress scheme and the government need to address this matter.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
“The Government\u00a0needs to be more proactive and take action to ensure that the religious orders, whose institutions benefited from enslavement of women and girls in their commercial enterprises, pay their fair share into the Magdalene Redress Scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn February this year the Taoiseach gave a heartfelt apology on behalf of the State to the surviving women of the Magdalene Laundries for the hurt that was done to them. He quite rightly told the women they were blameless – having been forced to live and work\u00a0in appalling conditions.<\/p>\n
“They also for most of their adult lives were forced to\u00a0carry a deep-set sense of shame that they or their families\u00a0had done something wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the majority of women the Taoiseach\u2019s apology was a turning point \u2013 but so too was the government\u2019s announcement of a redress scheme to provide support and\u00a0financial assistance to survivors. This would go some of the way address the hurt that the state and certain religious orders were complicit in.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnda Kenny’s\u00a0decision to make this an ex gratia scheme, and indeed to ask the women to agree to make no further claim against the state if they access the scheme is in marked contrast to\u00a0his generous tone and the fulsome content of\u00a0his apology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is this issue of possible liability that is clearly motivating the four religious orders in their refusal to make a financial contribution to the redress scheme. This issue of liability is also what underpins the government\u2019s redress scheme and their refusal to deal with other abusive institutions like\u00a0Bethany Home.<\/p>\n
“The religious orders have a moral and ethical and a social responsibility to contribute to the Magdalene Redress scheme \u2013 but the government too has a responsibility to ensure that those\u00a0directly\u00a0responsible for the enslavement of these women and girls are made to contribute to the redress scheme.<\/p>\n
“It is long past the time that \u00a0religious orders\u00a0 stepped up to the plate\u00a0and\u00a0paid their share\u00a0to the Magdalene Redress scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government needs to make sure that this becomes a reality and that the women who had to endure years of servitude are\u00a0compensated in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West\u00a0Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has\u00a0called on\u00a0the religious orders to step up to the plate\u00a0and\u00a0pay their\u00a0fair\u00a0share\u00a0to the Magdalene Redress scheme. His comments follow those of\u00a0his party leader, Gerry Adams, who also\u00a0raised the issue of the Magdalene laundries issue\u00a0with Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Crowe said it is this issue of possible\u00a0liability that is clearly motivating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,4,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bethany-home","category-general-news","category-magdalene-laundries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}