Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I will be brief. We have the product manufacturer which manufactured the product and there is a product liability if there is a product liability. It is something that happened a long time ago. When it comes to dealing with these cases we have to consider whether the State has a liability and then whether the claims are statute barred. My duty, as director of the agency and having regard to the equality provisions in the Constitution and all the rest, is that if there is a statute of limitations defence, I must put that into our defence. My duty is to ensure that we treat all our citizens, and other people living in the country who make claims, equally and that we do not do one thing for one group and something else for another. If we were not to plea the statute of limitations in these particular cases, then many other plaintiffs and groups would state that we were acting illegally and were not doing what is an equality type approach.