A top Vatican official has told a United Nations committee that responsibility for the Magdalene Laundries scandal lies solely with the Irish authorities.
Officials from the Holy See are facing questions in Geneva over allegations of child abuse in the Catholic Church across the world.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the Committee that the view of the Vatican was that the Irish State had taken full responsibility for the abuse scandal at the Magdalene Laundries.
The Vatican is facing questions from the UN Committee on Children's Rights in Geneva.
An Irish victim of child abuse has urged the Catholic Church to "admit what they did".
Elizabeth Coppin was just 14 when detained in a Catholic laundry, where nuns shaved her head, gave her a boy's name and held her in solitary confinement, scarring her for life.
She said "I can never forget what happened to me with the state and the Church, the abuse they inflicted on me as a human being, I will take that abuse with me to my grave".
Last year, Taoiseach Enda Kenny branded them "Ireland's shame" and apologised to the hundreds of women who suffered abuse in the institutions.
Vatican officials will have arrived in Geneva to discover that Ms. Coppin, now aged 64, has taken her case to the UN Committee Against Torture, claiming violation of human rights.
She fled to England but failed to escape the memories and has now returned to her native Co. Kerry in search of justice and financial retribution for her "stolen years".
