A HEPATITIS C sufferer, Ms Niamh Cosgrave, heard about Brigid Ellen McCole's death on her car radio. She was nearly as shocked, she says, as when she first learned about hepatitis C on the television news in 1993.
"I couldn't believe how shocked I was," says the 31 year old mother of two from Artane, Dublin. "I only met Brigid once when a group of us visited Mrs Robinson at Aras An Uachtarain and she said her liver was bad, but she was more concerned about me than about herself. She was somebody who was worse than I was who was very sympathetic to me."
Shortly after the news emerged of Ms McCole's death on Wednesday, Ms Cosgrave's telephone started ringing. The calls were from other hepatitis C sufferers who shared the grief at Ms McCole's death and admiration for her decision to pursue a public court action for compensation.
"They were all just devastated about it," she says. "It's something that make the virus very real for them. When you have a chronic condition it's very easy just to put it to one side and get on with your life but the news was one hell of a kick in the teeth for these women ... This kind of thing just brings it back to you that this is a lethal virus that has to be respected."
Ms Cosgrave has made determined efforts to get on with her life since learning that she contracted the hepatitis C virus through an injection of contaminated anti D following the birth of her second son in 1991.
Last December, she came off medication which had "arrested" the virus for 18 months to have a third child. She conceived in February and is due to give birth later this month.
The decision was a difficult one because, if the virus resurfaces, she cannot be treated while pregnant. There is an 80 per cent risk of this happening, although the risk decreases with time. The chance of the baby being born with the virus is less than 1 per cent, she says.
Ms Cosgrave received £259,300 from the hepatitis C compensation tribunal last July. Upon receipt of the compensation, she signed away her right to any future court action. Her husband, Myles (31), is also taking a case to the tribunal for earnings lost due to his wife's illness.
With the settlement money, she has bought a car and hired permanent part time domestic help to allow her to do part time work for her father, Fingal County councillor Mr Michael Joe Cosgrave. The home help allows her to spend time with her two sons, Andrew (6) and Michael (5). Ms Cosgrave intends to contest the next local election in the Donaghmede ward.
While the money has removed Ms Cosgrave's immediate financial worries, she says she annoyed that she did not receive either an apology or an acknowledgment from the Government or the Blood Transfusion Service Board.
"I would love to see them being open and to stop being afraid of us and treating us like some wolf that's about to bite them," she says.
Ms Cosgrave has begun switching off the radio and the television set to prevent her son, Andrew, hearing about it. "He calls it `hepsatitis'. I don't want him having `hepsatisis' becoming synonymous with death," she says.
. Ms McCole's body will be removed from her home in the mountain village of Loughaugher, near Dungloe, tomorrow morning to St Patrick's Chapel, Meeneweel, Gweedore, where the funeral Mass will take place. Burial will take place later in the afternoon in Magheragallon Cemetery.
Hundreds of people thronged to her home yesterday to pay their respects to the bereaved family and her husband, Brian.