More Talk And Still No Action

The Justice for Magdalenes group has been roaring for years, asking that the Irish government do something for the women who were victims of a social engineering program run amock.

And for all those years, their requests have been brushed away by a sweep of words.

The Irish Human Rights Commission has weighed in on the issue, and they have added their voice to a growing outcry.

Women and girls who were locked away and made to work at hard labor without pay should be compensated, according to the IHRC report. The government should make a full and complete investigation into the treatment those same women received, and at the very least, an apology should be issued.

The last time the forgotten Maggies approached the government, seeking inclusion in the redress scheme for victims of the industrial schools, they were told that it was the religious congregations they should be approaching. The Irish government had nothing to do with their incarceration at all.

Except, as it turns out, the State was often complicit in the drive to rid Irish society of illegitimate children and unmarried pregnancies. According to the IHRC report, the State may also have been in violation of its own statutes regarding forced labor, to say nothing of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The IHRC report also calls into question the amount of control the State had over the laundries, given that hundreds of women who died while incarcerated in the Drumcondra facility at High Park were buried without proper death certificates being filed. When the nuns needed the ground, they dug up the bodies and cremated the remains, again all done without going through proper legal channels.

At the moment, the Irish government is struggling to stay solvent. It's doubtful that the Dail can consider any amount of monetary compensation when the cupboard is utterly bare, but it would cost nothing for them to simply say, "We're sorry." And to never let it happen again.