Health officials play down fears of vCJD 'cluster' amid calls for inquiry

Health officials are playing down fears of a vCJD "cluster" in the south Dublin/Wicklow area amid calls for an inquiry into the spread of the human form of mad-cow disease in the State.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) said it had no notification of a suspected case of vCJD in Bray, Co Wicklow, despite the claims of a local coroner that he had knowledge of such a case.

Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty told an inquest on Tuesday that he was aware of a young man from Bray who was suffering from the disease, bringing to three the number of vCJD cases with a link to the area.

Dr Geraghty said he planned to write to both the Minister for Health and the Minister for Agriculture suggesting that they investigate the possibility of a geographical link between the cases.

He was speaking at the inquest into the death of Jason Moran (24), from Shankill, Co Dublin, who died last June from vCJD.

Returning a verdict of misadventure in the case, the coroner further pointed out that the first Irish victim of vCJD, Offaly woman Kay Turner, had family links to Ballybrack, Co Dublin.

The Department of Health said any observations from the coroner would be referred to a national CJD advisory group. A department source said, however, that evidence of a cluster of vCJD cases was "pretty slim" given that that only two cases - one of which had a tenuous link to south Co Dublin - had been confirmed in what was a fairly densely populated area.

The father of the young man at the centre of the inquest yesterday added his voice to calls for an inquiry into the matter. Robert Moran told RTÉ radio: "There are definitely questions to be answered, especially when you see people dying from this in more or less the same area."

He said the three cases were contained within a radius of four to five miles. "This first one would have been a coincidence, the second one no."

Labour Party TD for Dún Laoghaire Eamon Gilmore said attempts to establish the source of the meat in local supermarkets have "hit a brick wall".

"There must be a thorough State investigation into these cases," he said, adding that a compensation fund should be established for families affected by vCJD as had occurred in the UK.