It was \u201cdeeply disappointing\u201d and a \u201cjaw-dropping surprise\u201d to hear Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae suggest that a lack of vitamins causes autism, an autistic advocate has said.<\/p>\n
Concern has grown in the community since Mr Healy-Rae made the comments in the D\u00e1il on Wednesday during a discussion on a Sinn F\u00e9in motion on special education.<\/p>\n
Mr Healy-Rae began by saying: \u201cMinister, it seems to me that autism and many of these complex needs are on the increase, we need to do more to find out what is causing it and if there is a reason.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cIt seems to me that many more are presenting than in my younger days. And even when I was going to school, it didn\u2019t seem to be an issue at all at that time\u00a0\u2014 very few anyway.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He concluded: \u201cSo I\u2019m wondering, and I\u2019ve asked this question here before in different debates: is there something causing it \u2014 a lack of some vitamins, or what is it? We need to address that part of it as well, ministers, because there could be something causing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A number of parents of autistic children were in the D\u00e1il gallery to listen to the debate.<\/p>\n
Aaron Lowry, who is autistic and has two autistic daughters, was stunned.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy jaw absolutely dropped when he started speaking,\u201d he said, noting other TDs were also unhappy with the remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was unbelievable,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, there is a narrative carried on in the States at the moment with [president Donald] Trump and [health secretary] Kennedy, I wonder is some of that starting to infiltrate into our own political discourse around autism, which is really regrettable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pointed out that the charity AsIAm and others have done extensive work to answer questions on autism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe information is out there about what autism is \u2014 and what it\u2019s not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n To suggest that it might be vitamins was a wild statement\n <\/p>\n
Mr Lowry has made a formal complaint to the ceann comhairle, asking Mr Healy-Rae to apologise and withdraw his remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would also like to see him engage in some autism training and awareness,\u201d he said, urging other TDs to support the call.<\/p>\n
Mr Lowry and other parents approached the Kerry TD after the debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him to withdraw the remarks and issue an apology,\u201d he said, adding that these did not happen.<\/p>\n
The Irish Examiner contacted Mr Healy-Rae by phone on Thursday afternoon, but he said he was not in a position to respond.<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in TD Darren O’Rouke, who put forward the motion, has written to the ceann comhairle on the issue.<\/p>\n
He raised concerns to the Irish Examiner about the possible impact of this kind of misinformation being shared in the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to push back on all of that, it\u2019s completely ill-informed and based on no evidence or fact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pure rubbish and offensive to autistic people and their families. It undermines the challenge they face every day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said it was \u201cdeeply unhelpful\u201d, and called on Mr Healy-Rae to withdraw his remarks.<\/p>\n
He had addressed the issue in the D\u00e1il on Wednesday also, but Mr Healy-Rae had left the chamber.<\/p>\n
Senator Laura Harmon, Labour’s spokeswoman on disability, said: \u201cDanny Healy-Rae must withdraw the harmful remarks he made in the D\u00e1il yesterday, suggesting autism may be caused by a lack of vitamins. Such comments are ignorant, wrong, and feed damaging myths that have long been debunked.\u201d<\/p>\n
AsIAm, the national autism charity, described the remarks as \u201cmost unhelpful and deeply misinformed.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said it was \u201ca sharp reminder that Ireland is not immune from the growth of misinformation and disinformation that we are increasingly seeing in other jurisdictions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The charity urged all politicians to consider the impact of their words: \u201cWe would ask all Oireachtas members to think about the impact of their words before they use their platform to add to the pervasive stigma, myths, and hurtful stereotypes that not only cause hurt but create barriers to diagnosis and support and pose broader public health concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
They emphasised that autism is \u201ca natural variation in human neurology\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was \u201cdeeply disappointing\u201d and a \u201cjaw-dropping surprise\u201d to hear Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae suggest that a lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[49928,11357,9,10,49927,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-72805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-the-healy-raes","9":"tag-autism","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-dail","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}