Enda let himself down badly yesterday.

For some reason only known to himself, he approached the report in a cold, calculated way. There were times when we saw some possibility that he would rise to the occasion but he then fell back into jargon and coldness.

The speech was 800 words.

Undaunted has taken the speech and halved it. Would you have been pleased if our Taoiseach had delivered what follows?

I would first like to thank Senator MacAleese and his team for the work they have carried out in outlining the facts in what is a dark episode in Irish history. It may surprise us that only 10,000 women passed through the doors of the laundries but these are still 10,000 women who had to go through unimaginable pain. Each of these women had their identities taken away from them. That is enough to cause shame to this republic.

It is with deep shame I must tell the house that 25% of these women were sent by the State. It is obvious that the state failed to take due care in tracking these women and we failed to ensure the women’s welfare was the state’s primary concern.

Is it reasonable to put the horrors down to the fact that Ireland was a ‘different place’ then? I think not. As we prepare ourselves for 2016, it is obvious we failed to live up to the promise of the 1916 declaration. Those in power failed to treat all its citizens equally. As a people we failed to live up to the high standards expected of a republic.

Some may say that the absence of evidence of any sexual abuse lessens the suffering of those involved. This is patently untrue. The level of abuse, physical and mental, suffered by these women can not be ordered into a notional hierarchy. Their pain was real and it lives with them still. We must never forget that.

We have seen suffering from other groups who have suffered during the same period as those incarcerated in Laundries - Women who were given symphysiotomies, those given Thalidomide - they were also victims of a state that failed to see them as Citizens.

It is time to face up to these failings. Today may be the beginning of this process. To those women who suffered in the laundries, I apologize on behalf of the state and your fellow citizens. I’m sorry you had to suffer such barbarity.