Answer to a three-year campaign came on the back of a push bike

IT CAME on the back of a push bike, Jane O'Brien said. A single copy of the 197-page report arrived at the Fitzwilliam Square office of Positive Action at 3.46 p.m. yesterday.

Like the hundreds of hepatitis C-infected women she represents, the PA chairwoman, Ms O'Brien, had been waiting almost three years for the answers inside the small navy blue book.

The office photocopier almost broke down under the strain of copying it for their eight-member executive and legal advisers.

At a press conference last night Ms O'Brien said it would take time to digest the report's findings before the group could give its detailed reaction.

She said they welcomed the report as "the first unfolding of evidence as to what happened". From the beginning the group had maintained that the infection of blood and blood products should not be allowed to happen again, she said.

"It's unfortunate that it has taken three years for us to have words that we should have had long before, that the report is to be referred to the DPP. We, as victims, recognise - very personally the significance of those words."

Asked whether she was unhappy with the language of the report, where Mr Finlay's strongest criticisms use words like inappropriate" or "inadequate", she said: "The DPP will not make his decision based on language, but on the subject of the report."

She agreed that Positive Action had always used the word "negligence" to describe the events which led to the contamination and infection of hundreds of women. But the group was putting forward the views of infected women, she said, and this was "difficult to express in legalese terms".

She said the group accepted "the report was written by Mr Justice Finlay in a style of his own choosing".

His report dealt in much greater detail with the second contamination incident involving Patient Y, she said. "This happened at a time when a test for hepatitis C was available."

As the seven members of the executive sat in front of a large window in the Shelbourne Hotel overlooking a sunset on the Green, there was an air of a battle won. Or perhaps it was just that previous press conferences were held in darker rooms and on duller days.

In its statement the group said it would be making a "considered response on the implications of this report for the anti-D mothers whose lives have been so tragically affected by this contamination".

It said: "Positive Action thanks Mr Justice Finlay and the Tribunal team for the work they have undertaken in seeking the truth for the anti-D mothers and also his recognition that their work was a deeply distressing and very emotive experience.

Asked whether the family of the late Brigid McCole had received a copy, Ms O'Brien joked that "if the bike is going to Donegal" it would not have arrived yet.