Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 18: To ask the Minister for Defence the number of Army deafness claims that have been processed to date; the number of claims outstanding; the payment to claimants to date; the costs paid to claimants' lawyers to date; the cost paid to his Department lawyers to date; and the estimated cost of dealing with outstanding claims and costs. [21951/07]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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A total of 16,791 claims have been received from current and former members of the Defence Forces in respect of loss of hearing allegedly caused during their military service. 15,887 claims have been disposed of to date.

€284.8 million has been paid in respect of hearing loss claims including €97.7 million in plaintiffs' legal costs. The plaintiffs' legal costs include the fees of the solicitors' firms as well as other costs such as Counsel fees, medical reports etc.

The management of new and outstanding hearing loss claims was delegated to the State Claims Agency with effect from 1st September 2005. The State Claims Agency has disposed of 345 hearing loss claims and is currently managing a total of 272 active cases of the remaining 904 hearing loss claims. My Department has paid €0.6m in Plaintiff costs and €0.9m in agency legal and related costs to the State Claims Agency in respect of hearing loss claims. The State Claims Agency estimates the cost of dealing with the remaining currently active army hearing loss cases will be approximately €5m.

In general, the Office of the Chief State Solicitor pays the costs of the State's legal team in relation to claims not delegated to the State Claims Agency. This includes Counsel Fees, Medical Fees, Fees for Expert witnesses, State solicitors, Stenographers etc. These costs are charged to the Vote of the Chief State Solicitor's Office.

The most recent information available from the Office of the Chief State Solicitor is that in the period 1998 to mid 2006, by which time the vast majority of Army Hearing Loss cases had been finalised, it has paid a total of €17.8m in such fees. This included €11.4m for Counsel Fees. During this period, the Department of Defence also directly paid €2.0m in other costs associated with the processing of hearing loss claims.