Collins' mother, while in the laundry, was recommended a hysterectomy a decade before she died of ovarian cancer.
Collins broke her gagging order by taking part in a documentary called The Forgotten Maggies.
Collins had made a call for compensation to be extended to children of deceased women who had been in the laundries, and said her mother's unpaid wages should be hers and her sister's inheritance.
[7] After years of campaigning, Collins was a visitor to the Dáil in 2013 to hear the Taoiseach's Magdalene apology be issued, but was disappointed that they excluded the dead women and their children, and did not even provide a minute's silence for the lives lost.
[8] Collins then applied to Cork City Council to have her mothers remains exhumed from the mass grave.
They were also calling for free legal aid for those taking a case to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation and for the state and Catholic Church to support and fund those who wish to remove the remains of their loved ones from mass graves.