{"id":317475,"date":"2026-02-26T02:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/317475\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T02:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:21:07","slug":"survivors-of-thalidomide-drug-to-be-offered-formal-state-apology-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/317475\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivors of thalidomide drug to be offered formal State apology \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Survivors of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/thalidomide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/thalidomide\/\">thalidomide<\/a> drug scandal will be offered a formal State apology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A commitment to a State apology was given to representatives of the Irish Thalidomide Association (ITA) following a meeting with Taoiseach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/micheal-martin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/micheal-martin\">Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> and T\u00e1naiste <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/simon-harris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/simon-harris\">Simon Harris<\/a> on Wednesday night. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There are about 40 thalidomide survivors in Ireland who are all aged in their 60s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Thalidomide was a drug developed in the 1950s as a sedative or a tranquilliser that was promoted to treat morning sickness during pregnancy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It was withdrawn from most markets in 1961 following widespread evidence it was linked to birth defects. Many children were born without limbs or with shortened limbs, hearing and vision impairment and injuries to internal organs. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, the drug was sold in Ireland until 1964. Speaking before the meeting on Wednesday, the association\u2019s spokeswoman Finola Cassidy had said that \u201cno one else should die without an apology\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The meeting was described by a Government spokesman as \u201cconstructive and focused on resolving the various issues raised by the ITA\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere was a collective agreement to address issues speedily. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe Government reaffirmed our commitment to a State apology at the conclusion of the process, which they sincerely believe can be concluded as soon as possible with everyone working together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Survivors of the thalidomide drug scandal will be offered a formal State apology. A commitment to a State&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,7038,371],"class_list":["post-317475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-politics","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}