Tuam, Magdalenes and church wealth
Senator Devine speaks about Tuam, mother and baby institutions and the Magdalen laundries, linking them to International Women’s Day and the Flowers for Magdalenes campaign. She argues that the Church’s wealth was built on ordinary people's labour and says it should be given back. The Chair twice intervenes on time, and Senator Feighan follows with a wider condemnation of historic State and Church responsibility.
There are many issues to raise but, along with many others, I really need to raise the Tuam babies case and mother and baby institutions. Tomorrow is International Women’s Day and to gel it all together I was at the Flowers for Magdalenes event on Sunday. This is the sixth time we have hosted the event. I listened to the stories of the women. One woman said: "They took my hair; they took my human rights; they took my clothes; they took my name; but they never took my spirit." It was shocking. It was tearful. The crowds are growing year on year. People are looking for their children and families. Their search goes on. The women from the Magdalen institutions are elderly. Some are in psychiatric hospitals or what we used to call asylums. A handful remain there. They are unable to speak and have different disabilities. They do not know what is going on and do not know they are entitled to redress. The HSE needs to act fast. I have been banging my head against a brick wall in this regard for a long time.
I was in court yesterday with the Magdalen women, including the women who lost their children in Tuam and Cork. It was horrific. One such woman is 55 years of age. Therefore, it did not happen in our parents' time; it happened almost in our generation. She was forced to give her child away. She found him and they were reunited two years ago. Each of the 25 women in court yesterday has suffered mental health issues. They need protection and answers. We do not need procrastination. The man bringing the case against the HSE is searching for his baby sister, who was in Tuam. He does not know whether his baby sister is alive or buried in the graveyard there.
The wealth of the Catholic Church in this nation is relevant. At the inception of this country our souls and spirits were handed over collectively to those in the church so that they could do as they wanted with us. What they wanted to do with us, they did. They took us and stripped away, especially in the case of the poor. They attacked and hated poverty. They attacked women and children. We really need equality rather than simply talking about it.
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The wealth possessed by the church in this country was built on the back of the sweat and toil of my parents, your parents and our grandparents as well as on the tithe they gave every week to the church. It is time to give it back to the people.
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I was shocked again at what happened in Tuam. I did not think we could be shocked anymore after the Cloyne report and the Ryan report. Speaking in the Dáil at the time of the Ryan report, I said that we cannot blame anyone else for this. We cannot blame Britain or Germany. We have ourselves to blame. We are angry and we are reaching out to blame people.
However, the State has been set up since 1922. Under Article 44 in our Constitution, written in 1937, we gave a special relationship to the Catholic Church. It was taken out in 1973. It was deleted. However, we had a special relationship with the Catholic Church. That was the decision of the people of Ireland. This was the political system of Ireland that effectively encompassed almost 100%. Anyone who did not fit in went to the United Kingdom or wherever.
When I was growing up, if we misbehaved in our own towns, judges would send us to London. They felt it was a different place. This was a time when happiness was not really celebrated and there was an acceptance of suffering in childhood and hardship. We must reflect on where we are now. We can enjoy diversity and, without forgetting the horrible things of the past, we must look forward to positive things. Everyone had amnesia. We forgot what did not suit us. However, we must remember that we were the State. The State invited in the Catholic Church, which set up those institutions, and we are all culpable. Our parents were culpable as was everyone else. What happened the poor women and children is absolutely wrong. I am not churchgoing or religious. However, the Catholic Church is absolutely wrong. We have to trawl through the systems that were in place, including the Garda and education systems. Where was the INTO? Where was the TUI?