Why apologise today for 'historic' abuse? | Maeve O'Rourke | TEDxUCD

Maeve O’Rourke, a UCD graduate, is a human rights lawyer and a barrister. In 2013 she was named UK Family Law Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year for her legal work on the Justice for Magdalenes campaign.
In 2014 she was awarded the inaugural UCD Alumni Award in Law in recognition of her outstanding humanitarian work securing justice for the victims of the Magdalene Laundries.
In her TEDxUCD 2015 talk, Maeve argues that it is in the interests of our society to apologise to the women of the Magdalene Laundries, who are survivors of gross human rights violations and to ensure reparation in its fullest sense.
She explains that instead of being agnostic, we should properly understand why we cannot afford to sweep Ireland’s legacy of massive women’s rights violations under the carpet and fail to fully acknowledge the truth of what happened and where responsibility for it lay.
Maeve O’Rourke is a human rights lawyer and a barrister in London, where her practice to date has been in family law and international group/complex tort litigation. She has previously worked for the international women’s human rights organisation Equality Now, the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate (pro bono) and Just for Kids Law.
In 2013 she was named UK Family Law Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year for her legal work on the Justice for Magdalenes campaign. In 2014 she was awarded the inaugural UCD Alumni Award in Law in recognition of her outstanding humanitarian work securing justice for the victims of the Magdalene Laundries.
She is a graduate of the UCD Sutherland School of Law and Harvard Law School. She is currently researching for a PhD at Birmingham Law School on the human rights of older persons to freedom from torture and ill-treatment.
Twitter: (@maeveorourke)
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx