Madam,
I would challenge Batt O’Keeffe’s use of the word “employee” in relation to women who were incarcerated in Magdalen laundries (Home News, September 18th).
During the course of my years of volunteering with the Justice for Magdalenes group I have had the honour of speaking to many Magdalen survivors about their time in the laundries and none of them would describe themselves as “employees”. I have yet to meet a Magdalen survivor who said she was paid for her hard work or who said she entered a laundry on a voluntary basis.
The State’s abdication of responsibility in relation to the Magdalen laundries is nothing less than shameful. Mr O’Keeffe claims that the State was not complicit in referring women to Magdalene laundries. Yet he acknowledges himself in his letter to Tom Kitt that children were transferred from State-run institutions to Magdalen laundries.
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