A memorial to the victims of institutional child abuse is still in the planning process. The €500,000 project was recommended in the 2009 Ryan report into abuse at industrial schools and other institutions.
A planning application was submitted to Dublin City Council in October for a site at the rear of the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin.
A group representing Magdalene Laundries survivors has called for a memorial to the women.
The planned institutional child abuse memorial was picked from a public design competition, whose judges included survivor representatives. With an entrance from the other side of the square to the Garden of Remembrance, visitors would have sight and access to the back of the Children of Lir sculpture made famous when Queen Elizabeth II laid a wreath there during her visit in 2011.
The project, entitled Journey of Light, was designed by Studio Negri and Hennessy & Associates. It involves a covered walkway, seating, water features, feature lighting and sculptured elements.
Dublin City Council asked the Office of Public Works for further information on the design and other aspects of the project before Christmas, and a response is being prepared for planners by the design team.
In its 2011 submission to Justice Minister Alan Shatter on reparations for survivors, Justice For Magdalenes asked that the State fund an appropriate national memorial to commemorate the Laundries and the woman confined in them.
“In doing so, the State is committed to protect against the erasure of this chapter in the nation’s history,” it said.
It also called on the State to work with religious orders to erect suitable memorial stones and to ensure their complete accuracy.
Announcing the winning design for the institutional abuse memorial last summer, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said it would act as a testimony to one of the darkest chapters in the State’s history and to what society allowed to happen to vulnerable children.
“I hope it will serve as a constant reminder that we must never let such horrendous crimes against children happen again and we must strive to protect all of our children,” he said.