Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A few days ago, the Taoiseach made a comment about my party's policies where he used a term "slow learners". I do not care what the Taoiseach thinks about my party policies. In fact, I would be worried and wondering where we were going wrong if he agreed with them. However, I care about the choice of words because he has caused deep upset to disabled people, especially those with intellectual disabilities. Language is important. Some words are not appropriate, whether it is in relation to disability, sexual orientation, race, or colour. It is not good enough to say to say he was paraphrasing what somebody else had said. One woman contacted me to say that those words were used to her about her baby daughter 42 years ago. Her daughter has a severe physical and intellectual disability. This woman's life has not been easy and the Taoiseach's words reduced her to tears. She felt that for the head of Government to utter words like that was totally inappropriate. Will the Taoiseach apologise to people with intellectual disabilities for his choice of words?

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