James Breen (Clare, Independent)

I wish to share my time with Deputy McHugh.

The infection of people with hepatitis C and HIV through the administration of contaminated blood products is one of the greatest shames ever visited upon the people of this State. That shame was deepened by the reaction of various Ministers for Health in its aftermath. Instead of full and rapid support being granted to patients, an attempt at cover up, finger-pointing and denial quickly followed. Eventually Judge Alison Lindsay sought to get and produce a complete picture of the circumstances surrounding the infection with hepatitis C and HIV of persons with haemophilia and all related matters.

While the report that followed was in no way warmly welcomed by those affected, Judge Lindsay in her report criticised the unwarranted delay by the Blood Transfusion Service Board in the introduction of HIV anti-body testing of blood donations but fell short of blaming that delay in causing specific infections. What is important here is that there was a delay and there was further, possibly unnecessary, infection. Further anguish and pain was suffered by the victims of infection and their families by the lack of adequate resources and facilities at the national haemophilia treatment centre.

One of the most distressing features of this scandal was the delay in informing patients of the results of tests. Judge Lindsay also criticised this and recommended that it never recur. However, there is anecdotal evidence that these delays continued. At the end of this process, agreement was reached between the Minister for Health and Children and the Irish Haemophilia Society in regard to payment of compensation to haemophiliacs who were infected with HIV and was the basis of the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal (Amendment) Act 2002.

This new Bill, which amends the 2002 Act, supposedly gives greater support to all sufferers of that infection and their families. If this Bill came remotely close to doing that, it would not have lost the support of the Irish Haemophilia Society, the Irish Kidney Association, Positive Action and Transfusion Positive. Of course, the State should intervene in cases where the victims of contamination cannot get life assurance or mortgage protection cover, but steps to immediately provide travel insurance should also be included.

The Minister in her press release stated that this Bill was produced having worked closely with the representative groups of sufferers on agreeing the parameters of the scheme. Why then did they only hear about the new scientific definition for hepatitis C last Wednesday week? Her press release further stated that the Bill gives further support for people diagnosed with hepatitis C and HIV. She is giving so much more support that this new scientific definition will result in some of those already infected not qualifying for insurance cover under this new Act. This part of the Bill must be immediately dropped.

The Irish Haemophilia Society held its annual general meeting in March of this year and the large attendance included officials from the Department of Health and Children. One of the main items on the agenda was what members of that society considered to be the consistently adversarial approach of the compensation tribunal. Instead of taking on board the views of this meeting, the Tánaiste has further alienated members of the IHA with this Bill. She should either attend meetings herself in the future or send officials who can grasp the mood of a meeting and report back to her accurately, which did not happen.

The issue of problems obtaining insurance by those infected with hepatitis C was raised at the first meeting of the consultative council on hepatitis C in March 1997. This council is a statutory body established to advise the Minister for Health on all aspects of hepatitis C. Over nine years later, the Tánaiste finally managed to produce this Bill which is so out of touch with the concerns of sufferers that all bodies representing their views have called for the withdrawal of all or parts of it. Is it so unrealistic to ask that the Tánaiste present a Bill to the House which would meet all the requirements of those who were infected in the first place due to the shameful inadequacies of State bodies? Perhaps I should not be surprised when I see how miserably the Tánaiste has handled our accident and emergency crisis, inspection of nursing homes and child crèches, ambulance services in Clare and staffing and morale among nurses, junior doctors and consultants. Those infected as a result of contaminated blood products suffered owing to the lack of controls in the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. They then had that misfortune compounded by the inability of proper resources to aid their treatment, and many suffered appalling treatment due to a lack of information and misinformation in their diagnosis.

Despite their co-operation, the Lindsay tribunal seemed to be fast-tracked through to the report stage while, simultaneously, the Flood tribunal took a more detailed and comprehensive approach to its terms of reference. The findings of the Lindsay report did not find any individual to blame for the infection of hundreds of individuals. It found that only unnamed officials who gave misinformation to Minister for Health and Children seemed to be at fault and found that the final report should not be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions to ascertain whether charges should be brought against anyone.

The report should have gone to the DPP to allow him to decide on the charges issue. In spite of these failings, the Irish Haemophilia Society, the Irish Kidney Association, Positive Action and Transfusion Positive all co-operated with the Department of Health and Children to try to improve the lot of their members but were again failed miserably by the Tánaiste and this poor excuse for a Bill, which penalises some of those whom the State should bend over backwards to help in every way possible.

On a positive note, although I am critical of the Tánaiste at times, I welcome her announcement about visiting hours in hospitals, which follows a parliamentary question I tabled and which aims to stop the spread of infectious diseases. However, the Tánaiste must strictly enforce the rules for visiting hours so that, apart from emergency cases, there will be no visitors in hospitals after 4 p.m or 8 p.m. Doctors and nurses will then be allowed to do their job without being interrupted by flows of visitors which make it seem as if our hospitals were railway stations or airports.

See this speech in context