{"id":377377,"date":"2026-04-02T00:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/377377\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:44:10","slug":"thalidomide-survivors-optimistic-of-progress-on-state-apology-but-speed-is-of-the-essence-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/377377\/","title":{"rendered":"Thalidomide survivors optimistic of progress on State apology but \u2018speed is of the essence\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The organisation representing Thalidomide<\/a> survivors is optimistic progress is being made towards a State apology but said \u201cspeed is of the essence\u201d given the age of surviving mothers and health issues for survivors.<\/p>\n

It comes after the Irish Thalidomide Association (ITA) met Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> and T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> at Government Buildings on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Government has previously committed to a State apology and ITA spokeswoman Finola Cassidy said the organisation\u2019s latest meeting with Martin and Harris was \u201cvery positive\u201d. <\/p>\n

There are about 40 Thalidomide survivors in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Thalidomide was developed in Germany<\/a> in the 1950s as a sedative or tranquilliser but was later widely promoted as a drug to treat morning sickness during pregnancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was withdrawn from most markets in 1961 following widespread evidence of its link to birth defects, but was still sold in Ireland until 1964.<\/p>\n

Many children were born without limbs or with shortened limbs, with hearing and vision impairment and injuries to internal organs.<\/p>\n

In September 2024, the Government appointed retired High Court judge Justice Paul Gilligan to engage with Thalidomide survivors in what is known as the Thalidomide resolution process.<\/p>\n

At one point the process reached an impasse and there is an issue around 12 \u201cunacknowledged\u201d Thalidomide survivors whose mothers took the drug after it had been officially withdrawn.<\/p>\n

The ITA wants a State apology, recognition of the unacknowledged survivors, statutory supports and a fair compensation scheme to be introduced.<\/p>\n

Speaking after Wednesday\u2019s meeting, Cassidy expressed her belief that an agreement on all of these issues is also a priority for Government.<\/p>\n

She told The Irish Times that the timeline for a resolution to the issues involved is not yet set but \u201cboth sides are working extremely hard on it\u201d and \u201cwe think that the apology will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeed is of the essence because sadly some of our mothers are well into their 90s and some of our own survivors are not well,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

A Government statement said the Taoiseach and T\u00e1naiste had a \u201cpositive meeting\u201d with the ITA and \u201cBoth sides agreed that there should be further work to progress specific issues discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The organisation representing Thalidomide survivors is optimistic progress is being made towards a State apology but said \u201cspeed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[292,103,61,60,1843,9386,70,90215],"class_list":{"0":"post-377377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-micheal-martin","13":"tag-pregnancy","14":"tag-simon-harris","15":"tag-thalidomide"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377377","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=377377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}