One of Ireland's most popular toy shop franchises had to apologise to parents for accidentally including anti-choice abortion information in their catalogues.
Dublin's Mary Street store Banba Toymaster was inundated with complaints from people online about the possibilities of their children reading the material included in the catalogue. Releasing a statement on Facebook, the company was not aware of the leaflet being included in the catalogue and were alarmed by its inclusion:
It has been reported to us that our catalogue distribution company have been distributing other material not suitable for children along with our catalogue. This has happened without our consent or prior knowledge. We apologise for any upset caused. PLEASE, PLEASE check the Catalogue for any inserts not suitable before handing it to your child.
They apologised for any distress caused and cautioned that the referendum canvassing material may not be suitable for children. Although a number of parents were satisfied with the apology they hoped that the company contacted the distributor to warn them of the "unacceptable" leaflets.
Leaflet Company Ireland Limited, who distributed the material, clarified that they have no allegiance and are delivering materials for both the pro-life and pro-choice campaigners. Although a specific demographic was targeted, neither Leaflet Company Ireland or Toymaster know how the leaflets were included in the magazines. The leaflet included information about 'abusive' relationships:
Both Banba Toymaster and Leaflet Company Ireland have apologised after anti-repeal leaflets were sent out with toy catalogues, infuriating some parents. More on the Six One pic.twitter.com/dc80krX95B
— Stephen Murphy (@SMurphyTV) April 4, 2018
According to an apologetic statement that was released to the Independent.ie, a spokesperson for Leaflet Company Ireland is still not entirely sure how it happened:
We are the distributor for Banba Toymaster catalogues, who have been a long standing client with us for many years.As a distribution company we are contracted to deliver millions of leaflets for a range of different companies and politicians across Ireland. We have no allegiance to any side of the Referendum campaign and are delivering leaflets for both sides of this debate. The prolife campaign was matched with Toymaster alongside other leaflets on our booking system. Once we were contacted by Toymaster who expressed their concerns about the matching of these leaflets we immediately stopped the delivering of the same. We understand that this referendum is a sensitive topic and as a distribution company we have no allegiance to any political or likewise campaigns. We are unsure how the leaflets ended up inside the Banba Toymaster Catalogue as we distribute leaflets alongside others and not by insertion, as we do not have an insertion machine pre-delivery... Our distributors don’t insert leaflets inside each other and we cannot verify the individual complaint that it was inside the magazine.The Pro Life Group did not request to go matched with Toymaster or any other company, this was simply done by an automated planning process...We apologise if anyone has been offended by this.
It's not the first case of misleading information circulating through our every day lives but we have to wonder how misleading can the campaign become before May 25th?
