PEOPLE who take a HIV test as part of the Department of Health's efforts to trace contaminated blood products issued between 1981 and 1985 will not be penalised in seeking life assurance.
However, this would change if the result of the test was positive, according to a spokesman for the Irish Insurance Federation (IIF).
Mr John White, life manager of the IIF, told The Irish Times it was "absolutely not true" that merely taking a HIV test affected a person's status when seeking life assurance. "People have HIV tests for all sorts of reasons, for example work-related," he said.
A positive result could mean either that life assurance would be refused, or that a loading would be imposed, though this would affect only new applicants for insurance, not those already insured.
"If a person contracts anything which increases the risk of dying they would be an increased insurance risk," said Ms Nessa O'Mahony, also of the IIF. "The dice would be very much loaded against the insurance company."
Asked if this meant a person could discover that not only were they HIV positive, but also they could not get life assurance, she said: "It's a very tragic situation."