THE hepatitis C issue has seriously undermined the political career of Michael and created a wave of public anger against the Coalition Government.
No matter that huge concessions made to the public interest the appointing of a judicial inquiry, serious damage has been done to the caring image of the Government, and questions have been raised about the Minister's real desire to unearth the truth.
The pace of events has been spectacular. Driven by media interest and fuelled largely by public emotion, the fire of public condemnation kindled quickly on the death of Mrs Brigid McCole. And when it flared white hot, it burned away many of the pretences, excuses and protections erected over the years by the State.
The Minister for Health was forced to establish a judicial inquiry - something he had steadfastly refused to contemplate up to three weeks ago. The terms of that inquiry were much broader than Mr Noonan had originally intended. And the role of the State in the entire affair including his own actions - was, finally opened to public scrutiny. The Blood Transfusion Service Board was not the only body with serious questions to answer.
IN the Dail, yesterday, Mr Noonan made a virtue out of public confession. What had happened, he declared, was "nothing less than a public health disaster". And he sought common ground with all Dail parties and with his six predecessors as Minister for Health by describing the events of recent years as "a scandal". It was a careful exercise, designed to ring fence his Department against attack. And then he blew it.
The Minister has been operating under pressure for months. And he has been losing. Even before the death of Mrs McCole, he was taking collateral political damage because of his handling of compensation for the victims of hepatitis C. His efforts - and those of his Department - to force people infected by the virus to take their claims to the special compensation tribunal he had established rather than to the courts, were deeply resented.
To succeed in the compensation tribunal, women are required to drop any claim against the Department of Health. This requirement was regarded by opposition spokeswomen as the cutting edge of an orchestrated cover up. And they regarded his Dail statement - and that of his Minister of State, Brian O'Shea - that a file discovered in March of this year contained no new or important evidence as unsustainable.
There is no suggestion that Mr Noonan is in any way responsible for the infection of up to 1,600 people with hepatitis C. Those dreadful events took place long before he became Minister. But he is a big political target for the opposition. And his response to the plight of those terribly damaged mothers has been regarded as cold and clinical, rather than truly caring.
The response probably reflects official advice: a bureaucratic mind set which permeates the civil service and elevates secrecy and damage limitation to matters of principle. Even within Departments, a "need to know" approach sometimes keeps Ministers in the dark.
Government politicians are only slightly less attracted to secrecy than their civil servants. The tendency was nakedly revealed on Tuesday when John Bruton - speaking of the shelved promise to hold a referendum on Cabinet confidentiality - said there should be disclosure "only in the most exceptional, grave circumstances, if at all".
This reluctance to disclose information or to investigate contentious issues may lie at the heart of the Government's failure to introduce the Privilege and Compellability of Witnesses Bill, promises in the Programme for Government. This legislation was designed to replace judicial inquiries, after the beef tribunal, and to give real teeth and powers to a Dail Committee of Investigation.
EVENTS were moving so fast last week that, in the absence of such a Dail committee, the Minister had no option but to establish a judicial inquiry, in spite of cost considerations. But he didn't like it. And his officials liked it even less when the Government decided on extremely broad terms of reference. ,The tin hat was put on it when the public interest" was legally represented.
Michael Noonan was hurting when he stood up in the Dail yesterday. He had been accused wrongly of many things his strategy of dealing with the hepatitis C issue was in ruins, and his actions and those of his Department were going to be investigated by a judicial inquiry.
The anger and the hurt showed as he got into his scripted speech. He felt his original strategy of a compensation tribunal was the correct one. Victims were being treated generously. And then lawyers and the adversarial judicial system had got in con the act. Mrs McCole would have got a significantly higher award had she gone through the compensation tribunal, he insisted.
A campaign for Mrs McCole had been run in the courts, in the media and in the Dail by her lawyers. Could they not have selected "a plaintiff in better condition to sustain the stress of a High Court case?" he asked.
All hell broke loose. The attack had been aimed at tile lawyers. But the Positive Action women in the Dail gallery regarded it as an attack on a dead woman and on themselves for challenging the State in the courts. They demanded an apology or the resignation of Mr Noonan. It was no contest. Within an hour, the Minister was dressed in sackcloth and ashes and was rending his clothes on the floor of the Dail.
The Fine Gael Minister is normally a sharp operator. In 1994, he garnished a solid political reputation with his handling of abortion information legislation. But his touch on this largely women's issue has been strangely lopsided. After recovering brilliantly through the appointment of the judicial inquiry, Michael Noonan threw it all away yesterday with a few ill chosen and angry words.
