Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Compassion fatigue is a well known syndrome in development and overseas aid work. As a result, no matter how much sympathy a person has for victims of hurricanes or other disasters, he or she simply cannot give any more, especially any more money. They can have sympathy but not money. Compassion fatigue appears to have struck the Government in respect of hepatitis C. This is the full stop, the last note in regard to an issue the Government wants to see closed. It is sorry about what has happened and has compassion for those concerned but it will not address the issue in the manner advocated by those who are affected by State actions which poisoned their blood and health and traumatised their lives. Effectively these people will have to live with this for the rest of their lives.

That is not to say anybody in this House or in the general population does not fall ill or develop conditions to which they must attend. The difference in this case is that these illnesses were caused by State actions in regard to contaminated blood products. If the State is in any way caring or consensual where a health system administers mass treatment systems and the State makes a mistake then it must compensate people who suffer as a result of the error, maladministration or mistake, fairly generously and in full.

The Government has obviously decided to hang tough. It appears it has decided to call it a day on this scheme and put a final full stop to it. In 2004 we were promised an insurance scheme to address the lack of insurance cover for the people affected as they could not get insurance for houses or travel, but this Bill is far more than that. Clearly, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children has been advised to take this opportunity to put a full stop to the scheme.

As the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, rightly indicated, we are talking about a relatively small number of people — 1,700 — between the four groups the Department has dealt with. He stated the estimated cost of the new scheme will be €90 million over its lifetime, which will run for at least 30 years. Let us think about that and what would be the cost of conceding the additions sought by the four groups, and how we make decisions about spending money. The sums involved are so small that a whip around the builders who will be in the Fianna Fáil tent in the Galway Races in six weeks would sort out the problem. That is the level of finance that is required.

Last week the Revenue Commissioners published a report on the top 400 earners. These are people who earn €250,000, €500,000 or €1 million a year. The report shows that six of them paid no tax at all. Another significant number of them paid less than 5% in tax. If the Minister for Finance were to hang tough with these people, the amount of money it would take to bridge the gap between the Government and the four organisations could easily be made up.

I do not accept the comments made yesterday by Deputy Kelly, whom I know is a compassionate person. He was wrong to state boldly that there are millions of people around the world who suffer from hepatitis C and get on with it. That is not the point. We hold ourselves up as the Celtic tiger, the most successful country, the best of the best. The Government does this day in and day out. We now have higher GNP and GDP per head than almost any other European country. However, we know from a recent survey that while we are ahead in terms of wealth, unfortunately, in terms of the health service we only rank above Lithuania. What is required is for the Government to cross bridges and bridge gaps. The amount of money involved is small.

The Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, referred to the tribunal awards amounting to €660 million, including the legal costs. That is a great deal of money. We should examine what people have done with it. Their lives have been seriously affected. They have had to give up their jobs. The entire life prospects of people have been negatively affected. Some people have died from this condition. I salute the organisations like Positive Action who have retained a degree of positivity during all this time that is truly amazing. It has taken a holistic approach and sought to find well-being in the worst of circumstances.

Most Members know people personally affected by this issue. The Irish Haemophilia Society has done Trojan work also for people who may be brought down by the level of medical difficulty many of them face. The fear of the unknown is another factor about which we should not forget. God forbid, some of us may suffer from certain conditions but when one feels healthy, one hopes for the best. People bought houses with the €660 million, especially young people with haemophilia. That was the right thing to do. These people are also eating better food which they need to do because of their condition. It is not as though they ran amok, went to casinos and threw it to the wind. Most people and their families have conserved the money carefully. A small bit of redistribution has taken place. Property and land deals in Dublin 4 have probably made more than the cost of the tribunal in the past six months in terms of profit. They have also managed to escape stamp duty on that. The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Tim O'Malley, promised to continue the funding of the relevant organisations at €1.5 million per year and this is good news. Storing electronic voting machines is costing €700,000 per year. Could the Minister of State talk to his partners in Government and suggest they call it a day on these machines and use the money saved to bridge the funding gap relating to these four organisations, the Irish Haemophilia Society, the Irish Kidney Association, Positive Action and Transfusion Positive? The PPARS system has cost €150 million and counting. How does that compare to the Minister of State's generosity in allocating €90 million to this scheme? I served in Government as a Minister of State and I know money must be watched carefully but this relates to bridging a gap. I do not believe the Minister of State and the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, a politician of significant ingenuity, cannot bridge this gap to meet the needs of the four organisations.

I welcome the Minister of State's comments on extending the test. However, there is no satisfactory, scientific answer relating to this issue. Of the people contacted that received blood products some have died, some have been struck by serious medical conditions and others have got away comparatively lightly because they had antibodies relating to their infections. I suggest we go through the proposal by the group again. On page 176 of the Finlay report it is stated that it is possible for a person to be infected with hepatitis C and subsequently lose the detectable virus and antibodies. The ELISA test is supposed to detect antibodies but the report confirmed it does not always do so.

There has been a promised extension through the inclusion of the PCR test and that is welcome, but the Irish Haemophilia Society, the Irish Kidney Association, Positive Action and Transfusion Positive have pointed out that consultant hepatologists believe patients exposed to the virus may possess a low level of antibodies that does not reach the cut off level in the standard test. In the small number of cases in which this has arisen to date the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal has been willing to accept the clinical diagnosis of a consultant hepatologist as evidence entitling the claimant to compensation. This is the point. Why cannot the Minister of State concede it? It is not too late to accept amendments from the Labour Party and other parties seeking to cross this small bridge. Financially it amounts to an amount similar to that if we gave up on the notion of e-voting. Members could suggest other areas where money has been wasted that could be used to bridge this gap.

Deputy Tim O'Malley is a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, so he knows better than I do that all of the people affected by this, whether positive or by not suffering much or at all so far, are subject to regular health checks and medical examinations depending on the level of each of their conditions. Some of the most skilled doctors in the country have built a world renowned expertise due to what has happened. Why does the Minister of State find a clinical diagnosis by a consultant hepatologist unacceptable? Over the 30 years this scheme is proposed to run medical science will progress and the relevant tests will change. Already, in the 12 years since this issue came to our attention, the medical landscape has changed.

Can the Minister of State not agree to what is being asked? I promise, on my word as an accountant, that the money involved does not amount to much. Medical science keeps moving and what we know now will develop over time. The Minister of State as a chemist has significant knowledge of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. He must remember the shock when people first heard of this matter just as I remember the reaction in the Department of Health. Every Minister of Health and Children since has struggled to come to terms with it but we are now on the last mile. Medical science has already expanded tremendously and there are treatments available that have changed the landscape. Approaches to medicine and well-being that hardly existed 12 years ago have been adopted by some of the groups. The proposal relating to a clinical diagnosis is absolutely correct. I hope the Minister of State has an opportunity to reconsider before the conclusion of the Bill.

Yesterday at the Committee of Public Accounts I asked the Secretary General of the Department of Health and Children why it was not possible for parents of a child born with Down's syndrome, this week or next week, to get a medical card, given that it is a life long condition. I also asked why there was no guarantee relating to the domiciliary allowance and so on. The Secretary General, a caring and compassionate person, told me it was a question of money, that some people could have very high incomes and would not be entitled to a medical card. I know that, but it does not make sense that we will spend years nit-picking over this scheme for the sake of a small amount of money.

Last week in the Committee of Public Accounts the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform told us as a statement of fact that asylum seekers lied through their teeth.

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