O'Keeffe criticised for referring to Magdalen women as 'employees'

[SilverLining]

Covered on Liveline today following on from these two pieces.
The Irish Times

Separate redress scheme urged for Magdalenes

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

Mon, Sep 28, 2009

A SEPARATE redress scheme for women detained in Magdalene laundries has been called for by an advocacy group for survivors.

Justice for Magdalenes wrote to Taoiseach Brian Cowen last week demanding that the State introduce legislation for a distinct redress scheme for survivors.

“We contend that the State is morally obliged to apologise for its role in facilitating and silently condoning the abuse of generations of Irish women and children in these institutions,” the group said.

In his letter to the Taoiseach on behalf of the group, Dr Jim Smith, associate professor at the English department and Irish studies programme at Boston College in the US, said he was doing so “to seek further explanation of the State’s rejection of calls for a distinct redress scheme for survivors of the Magdalene laundries”.

In proposing a separate redress scheme for such people, he said the group recognised “that the nature of the State’s relationship to the laundries was different from its relationship with residential institutions.” He noted that “the only Magdalene survivors covered by the Redress Act are those young girls transferred from a residential institution (eg industrial or reformatory school) while still in State care”.

“Many other Irish children, however, were abandoned to the Magdalene laundries, many of them abandoned by their families. We assert that the State did have an obligation to provide for and protect these children from institutional child abuse.

“They were always Irish citizens. They were forcibly engaged in unpaid child labour. The Constitution governed the State’s obligation to ensure that they receive a ‘certain minimum education’.” How a child ended up in one of the laundries was “immaterial as this did not obviate the State’s constitutional obligation to protect her”, Dr Smith concluded.

O'Keeffe criticised for referring to Magdalen women as 'employees'

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Sat, Sep 19, 2009

MINISTER FOR Education Batt O’Keeffe has been strongly criticised for his description of women committed to Magdalen laundries as “employees” of those institutions, and for his rejection of their eligibility for State compensation.

Head of the Women’s Studies Department at UCD Dr Katherine O’Donnell said yesterday that, where news of spending cuts in sensitive areas is concerned, it was increasingly the case that “Batt O’Keeffe is turning out to be the big thug of this Government it’s a role he seems to relish”.

A spokesman for the Minister said he did not wish to comment on what he described as a personalised attack.

Dr O’Donnell was speaking in advance of a celebration of women who had been in the laundries, as well as psychiatric hospitals, and institutions investigated by the Ryan commission, which takes place at the Student Centre in UCD from 1pm this afternoon.

She pointed out that “an employee voluntarily gives his/her labour; is properly rewarded; and has a right to represesentation /free association with a union.” None of these were available to women in the Magdalen laundries, she said.

The State had “a responsibility to all of its citizens”, she said, including the many referred by its courts to the laundries. Of added relevance in the context was that for much of the 20th century “the special position” of the Catholic Church was recognised in the Irish Constitution (1937 to 1973).

She said that, anecdotally, indications were that the survival rate of women who had been in the laundries was “extremely low,” while their suicide rate was high. There was, she said “an obligation on the part of the citizens of this State” to look after such people.

Following representations by Tom Kitt TD, acting on behalf of Dr James Smith of Boston College, Mr O’Keeffe responded by letter that “the Magdalen laundries were privately-owned and operated establishments which did not come within the responsibility of the State. The State did not refer individuals to the Magdalen laundries nor was it complicit in referring individuals to them.”

He referred to the women as “former employees of the Magdalen laundries”.

Dr Smith has since pointed out that “the Irish courts routinely referred women to various Magdalen laundries upon receiving suspended sentences for a variety of crimes”. He can support this with documentary evidence, he said.

He also took grave exception to the use by the Minister of the word “employees” in the context.

Hope there isn't a thread on this already. Couldn't find one.

[mcdonald douglas]

The political class are so out of touch with the ordinary people it's scary.They really live in a paralelle universe.

[oscartango]

The Department of Education have a lot to answer for.

I say this as an ex-civil servant of a number of decades : that department was in the pocket of the Catholic Church and is still covering up for them.

[macdarawhitfield]

Batt seems to be in some private 'race to the bottom' with Coughlan and Cullen.Article 32 is the Achilles heel of the Govt on this.If 'we' gave the Church a 'special position' for 35 years does that not imply some responsibilty for this unhappy outcome?

Why else bother to have a government? Don't ansswer that.

[oscartango]

The Revenue Commissioners will obviously have details of the tax returns over many years for these Magdalen "employees". Let them produce them.

[SilverLining]

Call in the CAB to investigate and if need-be to confiscate the assets of the RCC institutions involved. If they broke their own loving god's laws they probably also broke the laws of the state.

Why should the RCC be protected when its victims are still seeking justice ?

[oscartango]

You'd need an independent assessor to go into the Dept of Education and trawl back over the years to see their complicity in Catholic Church abuse and the cover-up in that department which went right to the very top.

Now, you won't get that because we have no such agency and too many reputations, political, civil service and Church are bound up in this. It's difficult to think of a greater disgrace in modern Irish self-administration.

[SilverLining]

You'd need an independent assessor to go into the Dept of Education and trawl back over the years to see their complicity in Catholic Church abuse and the cover-up in that department which went right to the very top.

Now, you won't get that because we have no such agency and too many reputations, political, civil service and Church are bound up in this. It's difficult to think of a greater disgrace in modern Irish self-administration.

The State's files and documents may already have been destroyed, just as some of the RCC institutions did to cover up the crimes. This cannot be let die down as justice must happen, not just for the survivors and their familes but also for Ireland as a society. The denial of this is nearly as bad as the crime itself.

My parents generation referred to women who were put into such institutions as "wanting" (want n. mental lack < ON vant, lacking. 'There’s a want in that family'. - A Hiberno-English Archive). These women and children were seen by the society of the day as worthless and it didn't matter what happen to them. The truth is that they were used as slaves in work camps to generate income for the RCC institutions into which they were committed.

[Disabled student]

The State's files and documents may already have been destroyed, just as some of the RCC institutions did to cover up the crimes. This cannot be let die down as justice must happen, not just for the survivors and their familes but also for Ireland as a society. The denial of this is nearly as bad as the crime itself.

My parents generation referred to women who were put into such institutions as "wanting" (want n. mental lack < ON vant, lacking. 'There’s a want in that family'. - A Hiberno-English Archive). These women and children were seen by the society of the day as worthless and it didn't matter what happen to them. The truth is that they were used as slaves in work camps to generate income for the RCC institutions into which they were committed.

The files that Deaf boys went to a residential institutions named in the Ryan report whose files have been destroyed by the religious orders. I am not surprised at the state.They are great at cover up's.

[JollyRedGiant]

There are some seriously incompetent people running the country and this clown is top of the list - for an ex-teacher/lecturer - the guy has about as much knoweldge of the education system as my pet jack russell.