Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply but it does not answer the questions. I am informed that the State Claims Agency has spent €2 million rigorously defending discovery alone in cases. Have we learned nothing from more recent crises involving people who have lost their lives or will lose their lives? Ministers need to take a much more hands-on role in regard to how the State Claims Agency handles cases.

Last year the Minister, Deputy Harris, was quoted in the media as saying that the Department was considering a compensation scheme for side effects of important vaccines in line with the steering group on vaccines which had gone back over several years. That is over a year ago: what has happened? It is six years since our own Dr. Darina O'Flanagan established and proved the link with narcolepsy which concurs with the Swedes and Norwegians who also used the same one, and yet we have done nothing. I accept there is discretion in medical cards and there are a few bits and pieces to help people out, but no compensation commensurate with the level of suffering they have with lifelong and life-altering illnesses such as narcolepsy.

I am unequivocally in favour of vaccination. I have been vaccinated with Pandemrix as have my children. Luckily for us we have no side effects. Some do and they are entitled to be compensated as such. We need to bear in mind that Dr. Brendan Corcoran on behalf of the State signed a contract for 8 million vaccines in 2009 in the knowledge that it was not clinically tested and had no risk analysis. I am putting it in the public record, if the Minister of State feels it needs to be on the public record before he can comment. The Irish Medicines Board expressed its concerns about this to the office of Dr. Tony Holohan, the Chief Medical Officer, and nothing happened. The State intentionally lied to patients in three patient-information leaflets telling people it was tested when it had not been, that it was as safe as the ordinary flu vaccine when it was not, and that it was exactly the same as Celvapan and other vaccines when it was not.

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