Harney questions case against US blood firms

The Government is not confident it can build a case against US pharmaceutical companies which supplied contaminated blood products, the Tánaiste said today.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS) in Leinster House tonight, Minister for Health Mary Harney said it would be "very foolish to pursue legal action against pharma companies if we didn't have much chance of winning. We would have been putting the tax-payer at a huge expense to pursue litigation for the sake of it."

She was responding to IHS claims that the State may have of missed out on tens of millions of euro in compensation for haemophiliacs because of its unwillingness to prosecute US pharmaceutical companies.

Following the meeting, solicitor for the IHS, Raymond Bradley criticised the three-year delay which he warned could result in some cases becoming statute-barred with the State losing entitlements to recoup healthcare and compensation costs.

"The Government has sought lawyers to give opinion on other lawyers' opinions," he said.

"Compensation entitlements may be frittered away while the Government considers it options. Time is passing. The Government doesn't seem to be capable of getting an opinion as to whether it is feasible to pursue this litigation. They haven't even got off the starting blocks."

However, beofre the meeting Ms Harney said "a number of initiatives" had been pursued [but] none of them yet shown a case that has given us a chance of winning."

The Department of Health issued statement afterwards saying a firm of New York lawyers approached the Government with a proposal to sue the relevant companies.

"Initial advice received from a barrister appointed by the Attorney General raised serious concerns in relation to the proposal. Following careful consideration of this advice, the Attorney General recommended that an independent opinion be obtained in the US in respect of the proposed litigation.

The Chief State Solicitors Office has engaged a legal firm to provide the required advice and the Tánaiste is requesting that this advice be available by the end of May."

Earlier, IHS chief executive Brian O'Mahony accused the State of "failing to make proper provision for our members and using adversarial tactics to frustrate their cases".

He said these tactics included placing blockages in the way of people seeking justice in relation to Hepatitis C and HIV infections.

He said the State has sought to robustly cross-examine members "even though the State claims the system is non-adversarial", and that the IHS has had to resist four attempts to cross-examine members.

However, the Tánaistesaid there has been no interference with the tribunal and it was "operating on the same basis since it was established a number of years ago".

Mr O'Mahony also identified concerns with the failure of the State to provide legislation to allow IHS members with Hepatitis C to be insured, and he called on the Tánaiste to implement this legislation without further delay.

Ms Harney also dealt with this claim and said: "Legislation to provide an insurance scheme is at an advanced stage as they know and I will be bringing that the Government soon. It is with the parliamentary draftsman.

A total of 87 Irish people with haemophilia have so far died as a result of contaminated clotting agents, most of which were made by international drug firms based in the United States.

Several companies engaged in high-risk practices in the 1970s and early 1980s, such as paying prisoners for blood plasma at jails with inadequate safety checks.

In 2002, the then Health Minister Micheal Martin gave a commitment to assess the possibility of prosecuting these firms, after the Lindsay Tribunal refused to expand its terms of reference to explore the issue.

Additional reporting PA