Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

What the Opposition has said is totally and utterly untrue. As Deputy Kenny well knows, there is no question whatever of withdrawing anything from the 70 or 100 women. It is a fact that Positive Action and the liver consultants, as part of the expert group on hepatitis C, agreed that the basis on which a health card should be given should be the ELISA test. That was agreed by the representatives of Positive Action and the liver experts in this country. That has been accepted for some time. That is the basis on which we are going to proceed with the insurance and with the compensation. We will have a single, internationally accepted scientific test.

When a Bill was proposed on behalf of the groups ten years ago, the senior counsel who drafted that Bill, Mr. John Rogers, proposed at that time that the ELISA test should be used and it was not accepted then because it was not as developed as it is today. I do not want the Opposition playing politics with something.

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