AN ANTI D victim with hepatitis appealed to the Labour Party, of which she is a member, to ensure that the victims of the blood scandal are immediately given the right to aggravated and exemplary damages.
Ms Detta Warnock (Dublin North East) said she had been embarrassed to be a Labour Party member on many occasions over the past three years and had hung her head in shame "when this Government hounded the late Brigid McCole". She had wanted to walk away from the party when she, and other women, were threatened by the State that they would be pursued all the way to the Supreme Court.
She was proposing a motion directing, the party to ensure that the commitment to place the Compensation Tribunal on a statutory basis was delivered upon before a general election or the Dail's summer recess.
The heads of the Bill to place the Hepatitis Compensation Tribunal on a statutory footing will go to Cabinet tomorrow, said the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Mr Brian O'Shea.
The Bill would be a complex piece of legislation, he said, but was receiving priority and would be put before the Dail "at the very earliest possible date ... the Labour Party and the Government will deliver on this", he said.
"I am one of the anti D victims," said Ms Warnock, "one of the women who placed their trust in the Blood Transfusion Service Board back in 1977 and now find I have hepatitis C, a potentially fatal illness, through their gross negligence.
"Many of you may simply know me as Detta Warnock, secretary of Dublin North East constituency of the Labour Party, but I am also one of the women in Positive Action who have had to battle so hard for justice.
"I will live every day of my life with hepatitis C."
"No government can make me better or make the hurt I feel go away, but what thin Government can do is finally acknowledge in full the wrong that was done to me and the other women.
Positive Action had sought a statutory compensation scheme for over two years but was "told no, in very strong and insulting terms". Now such a scheme had been promised, but she and the other women wanted it passed before the summer recess.
At no stage in the tragic story of this contamination did anyone in the blood bank shout stop. No one acted when the link between hepatitis and anti D was confirmed in December 1991. No one stopped positive hepatitis C plasma from being used to make anti D plasma in the 1990s. No, one said sorry when this awful tragedy first came to light in 1994. No one, up to now, has given us justice".
Now there was a chance for the Labour Party to ensure the victims got the rights they deserved, and that the Government made amends.