Kenny criticises FF motion on Magdalene apology
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said that a Dáil motion by Fianna Fáil calling for an apology for the women of the Magdalene Laundries shows "scant regard" for those who lived and worked there.
Mr Kenny already signaled during a meeting with some women yesterday that he will deliver an apology during a Dáil debate next week.
Tears were shed as six women told the Taoiseach and Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore of their time in the laundries during a three-hour meeting yesterday.
“I found the meeting yesterday evening absolutely different in its genuineness of these people, the way they spoke, their stories, their personal accounts of their childhoods and their reflections 50 years on,” Mr Kenny said.
He said the issue was complex, required a depth of understanding from the report and needed to be treated with sensitivity and respect which, he said, was not what Fianna Fáil was doing with its motion tonight and tomorrow.
"I would have thought that having given a clear signal of what we would like to do here, that a political motion put in this way shows scant respect for the authors of this report, and less respect for who it is about," he told the Dáil.
"And I would have thought that everybody in the Oireachtas, of all parties and none, would reflect on what is the best thing to do here."
