Epilepsy drug left children with special needs...the guilt is awful Distraught parent took Warning as Harris urged tablets during pregnancies to launch independent probe

MUM DEMANDS ANSWERS OVER

wears glasses. They’re both happy little bunnies but I think it’s because of all the help and support I’ve got from family – when it comes to therapists and assessments you have to fight for everything.

“I feel they’re both very vulnerable. It’s heartbreaking. I went around for years blaming myself.

“I said, ‘I did this to them taking that medication’. The guilt is awful.

“As a mother carrying a child I didn’t know this was something to look out for.

“I just feel very let down and very angry for my kids because I don’t know what kind of future they will face.” Debbie said when she found the

Health Minister Simon Harris Organisation for Anti-convulsant Syndromes (OACS) Ireland Facebook page she realised she was not alone and cried for days. She added some members of the support group are still waiting for a letter from the HSE despite a commitment last October. The health service is obliged under new EU rules to contact recipients of the medicine alerting them to the risks and the steps they should take. Debbie said: “The HSE says the letters were sent out but I have yet to receive one. The fact the letter still hasn’t reached my hands, that lack of respect as a human being disgusts me. Every one of us feels so let down.

“The Government need to get their finger out, they need a full investigation going back to the 60s and 70s when this was first discovered.

“There’s young girls now still being put on Epilim. As a mother of two children with special needs that is not what I want for the future generation of young mothers.

“There are hundreds of children we know of but I think it could really be on a scale of thousands. We are just being ignored.”

In May, the Dail’s Health Committee recommended an independent probe to examine historical use of valproate