An American law firm has been retained by the Department of Health to investigate the possibility of initiating legal proceedings against pharmaceutical companies in the US which supplied contaminated blood products to Irish haemophiliacs.
The move was confirmed by Minister for Health Mary Harney yesterday during a meeting with the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS). She said her department expects a report from the US law firm within two to three months.
More than 260 haemophiliacs in the State were infected with HIV and/or hepatitis C between the mid-1970s and 1990. Most were infected by imported blood products.
The IHS has been, for many years, looking for the State to investigate the role of US firms in the contamination of blood products supplied to Irish haemophiliacs. After IHS protests that the Lindsay tribunal was not required to investigate them, the former minister for health Micheál Martin decided in late 2001 to send a senior lawyer to the US to investigate documents held in a Florida depository which related to the infection of haemophiliacs. The documents were used in US litigation against a number of drug firms.
The lawyer who travelled, Paul Gardiner SC, spoke to a number of experts including the lead counsel in litigation taken by haemophiliacs in the US. He furnished Mr Martin with a 60-page report and, in 2003, Mr Martin told the Dáil it said there was no guarantee that US authorities would provide judicial assistance to an Irish tribunal, either in relation to enforcing the discovery of documents, or compelling the attendance of witnesses.
Pressure from the IHS continued and, in June this year, Ms Harney said the Government was approached by a firm of New York lawyers in July 2003.
These suggested the Government could sue certain pharmaceutical companies in the US over the manufacture of blood products that caused hepatitis C and HIV infection to persons with haemophilia.
"Initial advice received from counsel appointed by the Attorney General raised serious concerns . . . Following careful consideration of this advice, the Attorney General recommended that an independent opinion be obtained in the United States in respect of the proposed litigation. Arrangements to procure such advice are ongoing," she said.
She confirmed to the IHS yesterday that a firm had now been retained to provide this independent advice.
IHS chairman Michael Davenport said the society had been waiting for this news for a long time. "Perhaps now our members will get the answers they need to bring closure to a period that has brought them much hurt and suffering," he said.
Ms Harney confirmed to the IHS that funding will be provided for the provision of a new, 12-bed inpatient facility at St James's Hospital, Dublin, the national centre for the treatment of people with haemophilia.