The Minister for Health has denied the Government is dragging its feet on the issue of compensation for haemophiliacs infected with HIV by contaminated blood products. The Irish Haemophilia Society said today that it was disgusted at the Government's failure to adequately compensate such haemophiliacs and called for legislation on the issue before the general election.
Mícheal Martin said that he hoped to bring legislation before the Cabinet within the next week or two. He said that he hoped to publish the legislation before the general election.
The IHS said that the Government had failed to meet a commitment made more than two years ago to bring in legislation, which would allow haemophiliacs with HIV to be compensated. One hundred and five people with haemophilia were infected with HIV by contaminated blood product during the 1980s. Sixty-four of them have since died.
Karen Stephens, whose father, Jerome, was a haemophiliac infected with HIV, said that since he died there had not been much income coming into the household and that it had been very hard for her mother. She said that the fact that compensation still had not been paid was "really annoying because I lost my father, my mother lost a husband and my brothers lost their father".
