A healthcare package offered under a government compensation scheme to women who spent time in Magdalene laundries was “essentially nothing more than” the routine service provided to medical-card holders, a new report states. “They feel keenly the injustice done to them because they were young women and girls,” it says. The new report notes how “Magdalene survivors accepted the terms and conditions of the Restorative Justice Scheme and signed away their right to sue the State on the promise of an enhanced health service”. It adds that “ultimately the benefits offered to them are essentially nothing more than the routine healthcare service offered to State medical-card holders”. In November 2017 the Ombudsman found that the manner in which the Restorative Justice Scheme was administered by the Department of Justice constituted maladministration within the meaning of the Ombudsman Act.

Source: The Irish Times June 25, 2020 17:15 UTC