Mulherin speaks out about HSE-funded sex advice

Mulherin speaks out about HSE-funded sex advice


Ciara Galvin
ciaragalvin@mayonews.ie

Fine Gael TD Michelle Mulherin has criticised a HSE-funded youth website this week, calling its advice about ‘threesomes’ to teenagers ‘incredibly regressive’ and ‘very worrying’.
Ms Mulherin (pictured) made the comments after spunout.ie published tips and advice to teenagers who may be thinking about becoming sexually intimate with two people rather than one.
The Ballina TD, who wanted to raise the issue with Minister for Health James Reilly, has been reported as saying that whoever sanctioned the €124,000 funding for the website should be brought before an Oireachtas Joint Committee.
In a statement defending the website’s tips, spunout.ie said it exists to provide ‘balanced, reliable and responsible information for 16 to 25 year-olds only’. The website argued that young people are having sex, “whether the Sunday Independent [which first published the story] or Deputy Michelle Mulherin like it or not.” The statement also referenced HSE findings that showed detailed sexual education leads to young people waiting longer to have sex for the first time.
Speaking on national radio yesterday [Monday], the website’s Communications Officer, Ian Power, said a former editor of the site had written the piece over three years ago and that the coverage the topic was receiving was a positive thing.
Commenting on Today FM, he said: “Most people in Ireland were probably talking about sex on Sunday, and I think that’s positive.”
A spokesperson for the Erris No Name Club told The Mayo News that she did not believe the article helped young people, adding that the website’s advice on having sex with a third party ‘you have no attachment to’ for a threesome was ‘abhorrent’.
“By writing about this issue more pressure is being put on young people and they could assume this is normalising something that isn’t normal,” she said.
Opinion is divided on Spunout.ie’s story, which received an estimated 8,000 visits over the weekend. The story was edited on Sunday morning, with some aspects of the advice in the original piece removed.
Some comments posted on the site by members of the public side with the website, saying the tips are informative and useful, while others have questioned the website’s handling of it. One member of the public found fault with the website ‘trivialising’ a very complicated subject, and many had difficulty with forming their opinion of the site’s tips, as they had not seen the unedited piece which Ms Mulherin was speaking out about.

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