The expert group set up by the Government to establish a standard against which to measure the Defence Forces' hearing damage claims has almost completed its work and is to report by next week.
The group's report is expected to arrive with Government alongside the report from the Dail Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which held a three-day inquiry into the hearing damage claims in January.
It is expected that the expert group's recommendations will provide a system which differentiates between what is termed 'high tone loss', normal in middle-aged adults, and actual hearing disability.
Many of the awards made by the courts so far have been on the basis that the claimants have high tone loss, with conflicting medical evidence given as to whether or not this was normal for an adult of the claimant's age or damage caused by shooting or explosions.
Any new system would almost certainly be strongly contested by legal firms representing the thousands of service personnel claiming damages.
A draft of the PAC report, details of which were published in the Irish Independent yesterday, indicates that the committee is highly critical of the early high levels of awards made to claimants by the courts.
The draft also states that the Government failed to act with appropriate urgency when the level of claims began to mount.
The PAC chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell, said yesterday the final version of the report on the three days of hearings would be completed within the next week and put before the Dail.
He said he was concerned that the publication of an 'early draft of the report' could have an 'adverse impact on public finances'. It is understood there is some concern about the possibility of a rush of claims from serving and former soldiers who feel that a cap might soon be placed on compensation payments.
Court awards were suspended last month after the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, set up the expert committee to establish a standard against which to measure hearing damage. Until now there has been no agreed standard in the State.
Partly as a result of this lack of a hearing-damage standard the compensation payments have varied widely. The State has paid out £70 million in compensation in settlement of 1,422 cases. There are a further 10,125 pending.
Since the beginning of this year alone, some 928 claims for damages have been sent to the Department of Defence for serving or former military personnel.