AD for Autistic Children Banned.

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday May 14, 2007 21:11 by Mick Butler - CFSD

A new advertisement highlighting the urgent needs of autistic children has been banned by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) for being critical of Government policy.

A spokeswoman confirmed today that BCI had banned the advertisement on the grounds that it "could only be understood to be critical of government policy". The commercial,sponsored by the charity and campaign group Irish Autism Action, intended to highlight the plight of these children and to remind the public that effective intervention could radicially assist these children, but is being actively blocked by the Government. The same government fought one family recently on this issue in the High Court and won. The full text and reasoning of that judgement was due several weeks ago, but it was later announced that the ruling would not be published until the end May.

The commercial opens by saying "Imagine you had a baby son. Your pride and joy. Your whole world. Imagine if at eight months he still didn't gurgle. Imagine if on his first birthday, he still didn't know his name. Imagine he grew older and started running into walls. And there was nothing you could do..The ad continues ..Now imagine there was a glimmer of hope. A light of learning called ABA Education, which stopped him running into walls. And might stop him being put into care. Imagine the government took that light and extinguished it. That's exactly what they've done to my son. And other children with autism."

The BCI spokeswoman said that a second draft was received by the body. This draft had removed the section that was critical of government, but BCI determined that despite this amendment "it could only be understood to be critical of government policy."