A report on vaccine trials in children's homes has now been sent to those mentioned in it, and will be published once they have given their observations, according to the Department of Health.
The Minister for Health will make a comprehensive statement on the report when it is published, the Department said yesterday.
The Department estimates it will be published in about three weeks. It will be issued through the Oireachtas, therefore affording it privilege and protecting it against the possibility of defamation actions.
The Department said the report had now been agreed with the Attorney General's office, which received in on Thursday.
The report was initially cleared by the Attorney General six weeks ago but was sent back to him on Thursday, the day details of it were published in The Irish Times. A number of additions were made to it in the Department recently, necessitating its return to the Attorney General.
The report states that testing of vaccines on residents of children's homes in the 1960s and 1970s may have been done without the consent of parents or guardians, and may have left some children susceptible to serious illness.
The Attorney General advised the Government that it must send the report to those mentioned in it for their observations.
Those who will now receive copies include the drug company involved, Glaxo Wellcome; a medical microbiologist, Prof Irene Hillary, who was the lead consultant in the trials; and the Eastern and Southern Health Boards, in whose areas the homes used were based.
The report is expected to be debated or examined either in the Dail or in an Oireachtas committee. Government sources do not rule out the possibility of its being referred to the Laffoy Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
A representative of a group of former residents of two of the homes involved yesterday called on the Minister for Health to give his group a copy of the report immediately.
Mr Victor Boyhan, now a Progressive Democrats councillor in Dun Laoghaire, was a resident of the Bird's Nest Home in Dun Laoghaire, and his group includes former residents of the Cottage Home, also in Dun Laoghaire.
"We were told we would be briefed on this before it was published," Mr Boyhan said, "so it came as a surprise to see it in a newspaper. Now we would like confirmation of the locations involved and we would like to hear a response from Wellcome, the boards of trustees of the orphanages and from the Minister."