The Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, has acted properly by his decision yesterday to set up a judicial inquiry into the production and use of contaminated blood products by the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB). Last May, he ruled such a procedure out on the grounds that some of the circumstances had already been investigated by the expert group under Dr Miriam Hederman O'Brien and that the High Court case brought by one of the victims, Mrs Brigid Ellen McCole, would amount to a formal judicial inquiry, rendering any separate body for the purpose inappropriate.
Mrs McCole's tragic death last week has closed off the second avenue of investigation for the time being, and Mr Noonan has rightly deemed that any further procrastination, by awaiting a second High Court case, would benefit no one and add to the general feeling of suspicion and scepticism surrounding the scandalous reticence of the BTSB. The decision, however, seems almost to have been dragged from the Minister the public was given an insight into his thought processes earlier this week when he ruminated aloud about the parallel, as he saw it, between the grossly extravagant beef tribunal and the proposed judicial inquiry surely a scare mongering tactic that was totally irrelevant to the underlying question of principle.
The comparison, in any case, was an absurd one, as Mr Noonan has effectively conceded on reflection. The beef tribunal involved powerful interests, business and political, bent on sowing confusion, and an array of highly complex and difficult issues. The BTSB case, by contrast, will be primarily concerned with shining a light into the dark passages of a single public body and examining the actions of a limited number of individuals. While Mr Noonan had valid reasons for delay, the counter arguments were overwhelming, and his inaction, as a result, has been widely seen as adding to the sense of public unease over the reluctance by the authorities to come clean.
In spite of the BTSB's apology in court yesterday, acknowledging Mrs McCole's suffering "through its fault", few people will believe that the necessary culture of openness has been generated to confront and answer the many questions still outstanding. The Hederman O'Brien inquiry revealed an organisation of almost incredible shortcomings for the long period from the late 1970s, when the initial blunders were committed, to the early 1990s, when evidence of the contamination was still being blithely ignored. Mr Noonan himself described the attitude at that time as "sheltered and inward looking", which is a relatively charitable reading given the revelations contained in Dr Hederman O'Brien's report. Negligence, in some circumstances, is not treated kindly by the law.
By its scale and its horrific consequences, the use of contaminated blood products by the BTSB is by far the worst of a number of cases of disastrous action by officialdom that have come to light in recent years, causing suffering and injustice to individuals and costing the taxpayer many millions in compensation and legal fees. The beef tribunal was one instance, but there have also been the examples of the Brendan Smyth fiasco and the long running refusal to give women equal social welfare rights.
A properly conducted inquiry now, such as Mr Noonan has promised with the full authority of a High Court judge and narrowly focused terms of reference could have salutary effects not only in establishing the true facts and responsibilities in the BTSB, but in encouraging higher standards of accountability in public administration generally.