Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 31: To ask the Minister for Defence if all army deafness claims have been disposed of; the final number of claims processed; the total payments to claimants; the costs paid to claimant's lawyers; the amount paid for departmental costs; the estimated cost of dealing with outstanding claims; and the steps taken to eliminate or minimise such claims for the future.. [42198/09]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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A total of 16,807 hearing loss 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. 16,139 claims have been disposed of to date. €288.7 million has been paid in respect of hearing loss claims including plaintiffs' legal costs of €100.2 million. 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 851 hearing loss claims and is currently managing a total of 417 active cases. My Department has paid €1.2m in plaintiff costs and €1.4m 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 €8m. Hearing loss claims received after July 2002 are generally being contested on the basis of Statute of Limitations.

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 October 2009 by which time the vast majority of Army Hearing Loss cases has been finalised, it has paid a total of €18.2m in such fees. This included €11.6m for Counsel fees. During this period, the Department of Defence also directly paid €3.4m in other costs associated with the processing of hearing loss claims.

There is an ongoing programme of education for all military personnel in relation to hearing protection, and equipment is kept under review to ensue that the Defence Forces will always have up to date hearing protection equipment. The military authorities have issued state of the art hearing protection to all members of the Defence Forces, and all range supervising officers are required to ensure that personnel engaged in firing wear the appropriate protection. All other persons on the firing range are required to wear protection when within the noise danger area.