Cowen says both Ministers mishandled blood scandal

TWO Coalition ministers were strongly criticised by the Fianna Fail spokesman on health.

Mr Brian Cowen accused the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, a former minister for health, of mishandling the scandal.

"Both Ministers have been very keen since the tribunal report was published to give the impression that they have landed on their feet because they organised the somersaults in between. Anybody who knows anything about this affair knows that the political responses of Ministers Howlin and Noonan were chaotic and it is nonsense for them to claim otherwise."

Mr Noonan was the reason there had to be a judicial inquiry. "He was the first Minister to have all the information. Yet he refused to give it to the Dail and there had to be a tribunal to get it out of him and the State agencies under his aegis. He knew the BTSB never had any defence in any legal action but aided and abetted them in their cover up in the McCole case.

Mr Noonan had set up an ad hoc compensation tribunal, despite victims opposition and the promise in the Rainbow's Programme for Government to pay fair compensation, said Mr Cowen.

"The Minister continues to believe that this is all about money and lawyers. This is a flawed belief and explains a lot of his mishandling of the affair. The compensation scheme continues to fail a fairness test on many counts, but the Minister has resisted, despite numerous Dail debates and calls from victims, to make any substantive changes.

Mr Howlin, he said, had left the State's responses to those who caused the scandal. He never informed the Dail, the Government, GPs or the public that the 1991 infection had also occurred.

"I disagree seriously with the tribunal on this point and I think it extraordinary that there is no criticism of the Minister's failure to disclose a central fact. How could it have been adequate, as Mr Finlay has said, to withhold this information?"

Mr Howlin had "shown the moral fibre of a secondhand car salesman. That is probably doing an injustice to car sales people".

Mr Cowen asked where the accountability of the Taoiseach and Tanaiste had been throughout the affair. "Where is their concern? What have they ever said publicly about the way the scandal has been handled? Where have they been throughout the political chaos of the crisis and what about the quality leadership promised?"

Ms Liz O'Donnell, PD spokeswoman on health, said the tribunal had exposed the State's culpability and both Ministers Howlin and Noonan "were in full flight from accountability". The blood board officials had reacted angrily to her party's call to have the BTSB disbanded, accusing it of irresponsibility and claiming it would undermine confidence ink the blood supply.

"Can they not see, even now, that this mind set is the classic genesis for cover up? That very fear, of undermining confidence, was central to the cover up of this whole thing from the very beginning.

Ms O'Donnell repeated her party's call that aggravated and exemplary damages be paid to the victims of infection. The Government was putting forward its motion as a generous concession to the victims. "Like all other concessions in this sorry saga, it has been wrenched from this brutal administration at the 11th hour by a Government in full flight from the people."

This administration had "walked on women". It had political responsibility for driving the truly abhorrent and merciless legal strategy which had as its aim to intimidate, frighten and wear down the unfortunate women seeking justice and truth.

Ms O'Donnell asked why all the information came out in the tribunal and not in the Dail. "The answer is that the Dail was misled, not once but hundreds of times in the manner with which the two Ministers for Health dealt with the scandal since it came to public knowledge."

The victims of BTSB negligence merited the awarding of aggravated damages. Did the State or the BTSB or anybody else have "a leg to stand on" in light of the list of facts on negligence? "How many negligence acts does one need for a finding of aggravated damages?"

"The scale of the wrong is almost too great to contemplate," said Ms O'Donnell.