Documentary maker rages at Minister's stance on 'Maggies'
A Kildare man who has made a documentary about the Magdalene laundries has criticised a comment by the Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe that women who spent time in the laundries are not entitled to any redress because technically, they were 'employees'.
Prosperous man Ger Boland, part of the a film-making team that produced the harrowing documentary 'The Forgotten Maggies' has said that the minister does not understand the issue.
"It seems to me that they have never even met a 'survivor'," Mr. Boland explained.
Minister O'Keeffe made his remarks in a reply to a letter from his fellow Fianna Fail TD, Tom Kitt who was writing to him on behalf of a campaigner on the issue.
"The Magdalene laundries were privately-owned and operated establishments which did not come within the responsibility of the State," he explained.
"The State did not refer individuals to the Magdalene laundries nor was it complicit in referring individuals to them," he said.
He also pointed out that the laundries were not subject to State regulation or supervision and so had not been listed as organisations that came under the remit of the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002 – and by extension, the Redress Board.
In his letter, Mr O'Keeffe noted that "in terms of establishing a distinct scheme for former employees of the Magdalene laundries, the situation in relation to children who were taken into the laundries privately or who entered the laundries as adults is quite different to persons who were resident in State-run institutions".
However, the film made by Mr. Boland and his colleague Steven O'Riordan, a woman who had been in a laundry in New Ross proved that the the laundry and the local industrial school (which was run by the State) were essentially the same thing.
But Mr. Boland believes that the State has a responsibility to the women because it did not safeguard their human rights.
"We all know that Magdalene women were locked up, had no name, no education and were made work.
"But at the end of the day they also had no human rights and that is where I feel the Government are responsible.
"The Irish Constitution states that 'the State shall, as guardians of common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education that is both moral, intellectual and social'.
"The government had an obligation to provide education for children up to the age of 14 and yet the Magdalene women never received an education.
Mr. Boland also noted that "Magdalene Laundries were funded by the Eastern Health Board from 1979 to 1994. They received 3 per person admitted every week rising to 18 per person per week, which, he noted, proved the fact that they were the responsibility of the government.
Speaking to the Leinster Leader he said he was not aware if the Minister has seen the documentary and said he would forward it to him.
“Although you never know, it could just be seen by a secretary and that would be that,” he said.
Meanwhile in his weekly column last Tuesday, September 29, Irish Times commentator Fintan O’Toole took a more cynical view of the matter.
By using the phrase “employees” to describe the woman, “it hints at what will happen if the women take action in the courts,” he noted.
“The State will fight them all the way, even to the extent of denying that they were in fact subjected to forced and unpaid labour. So the message to the surviving Magdalens, almost all of whom are elderly and many of whom are vulnerable and impoverished, is: see you in court.”
An adviser to the Minister admitted to the Leinster Leader that the phrase 'employee' had been inappropriately used. “The word 'worker' should have been used,” Bernard Malee said, adding that the Minister had been addressing the matter from the perspective of the legal position only. “These institutions were not State run,” he added.
When asked if the Minister had any view on where the women might seek redress, if not from the State, he suggested that it was a matter for themselves.
And he reiterated that the Minister’s comments referred only to the legal position, not to the women's right to seek redress.
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Thursday 17 May 2012
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