Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Minister for Health and Children has had a busy day but I am disappointed she is not present for the debate. While I welcome the Minister for Education and Science, this is a serious issue and I would have liked a direct response from the Minister for Health and Children. I first raised this issue with her in January 2006. It relates to two of my constituents and a small number of other people who are victims of the thalidomide problem that occurred across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. They have been in negotiation and discussion with the Department of Health and Children for the past number of years but limited progress has been made. Their injuries are fully compatible with their mothers taking thalidomide during pregnancy. In the case of one woman, one of her arms and one side of her body is completely affected and her other arm has been affected in recent years. Discussions with the Department have not resulted in much progress.

The reason I raise the matter is that only four people remain in the world who have the necessary expertise, having dealt with thalidomide victims in the 1960s. They are based in England, Australia, Japan and Sweden. The Department of Health and Children has been in discussions with Dr. Kohler from Sweden. He is elderly but he indicated he would be prepared to travel to Ireland. However, the victims were told last July their cases would not be reviewed until November at the earliest. They still have not received a communication from the Department regarding a date for the reviews. The Department then sought additional information from the victims, some of whom are unable to provide such and require a medical assessment to be carried out.

I would like the Minister for Health and Children and the Department to give a commitment on a date for the assessment. Approximately five cases are before the Department currently. If Dr. Kohler is unable to travel to Ireland, I ask the Government to arrange for the victims to be brought to Sweden for the examinations to be carried out. This issue was raised in the House in 1973, 1974 and 1975 and I am concerned with the passage of time that the remaining experts may die and another Member will still be raising the plight of these people in ten years but the necessary expertise to carry out the relevant medical examinations will not be available.

The parents of the people in question were not able, for various reasons, to push forward the case on their behalf at the time. I appreciate the existence of medical difficulties that need to be overcome and that there may not be written evidence in the case of some of them. However, an examination of their medical condition will prove that their mothers were given the thalidomide drug, and on that basis they are entitled to be compensated.

I hope the response from the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Harney, will be positive. I particularly want to know when these people can expect to be called for an examination. I was told in discussions with the Department that the process it is undertaking is a benign and not a threatening one. However, the people in question have not been given the opportunity to have meetings with Department officials or to discuss this issue with anybody, other than with me as a public representative, and I have raised it with the Department on their behalf. While they have been offered prospective meetings they have not been offered the provision of advice at such meetings, which makes it difficult for some people to outline fully the nature of their condition. I look forward with interest to the Minister's response and I hope progress will be made for these people.

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter, to which I will respond on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children.

Exposure to thalidomide has had a huge impact on people's lives. I am conscious of the fact that thalidomide has affected and continues to affect the lives of a number of people, their families and friends. I have a good friend who is a victim of thalidomide who has had a wonderful academic and professional career and is also making an enormous contribution to the local community through music and involvement with choirs in Thurles.

The Department of Health and Children is considering applications from a number of individuals claiming exposure to thalidomide and requesting compensation for that exposure. It is the intention of the Department to write to each individual in the near future indicating whether he or she is being referred for specialist medical assessment. This decision is being based on the specialist medical evidence provided by each individual.

The Deputy will understand that, in view of the passage of time since the original scheme of compensation for the victims of thalidomide, the Department of Health and Children has had to carry out an extensive examination of documentation to obtain background information on the individuals and assess the most appropriate way to consider the applications. The Department is conscious of the need to progress this matter and is taking all appropriate actions to move this matter along.

The United Kingdom Thalidomide Trust has indicated that current practice worldwide is that acceptance of determining if disabilities are related to thalidomide relies on medical examination of the applicant and that medics have stopped trying to establish whether a mother took thalidomide as this was proving impossible to verify, given the time lapse.

The Department of Health and Children will use the services of an independent international medical examiner to carry out a medical assessment of the cases that provide corroborated specialist medical evidence indicating foetal exposure to thalidomide. It is the intention of the Department to make the necessary arrangements with individuals for the medical assessment by the international expert to take place early in the new year. I believe that answers the question the Deputy raised. The remainder of the script is background information on the issue for the Deputy.