The Minister for Health is considering whether a new Tribunal of Inquiry should be held into the contaminated blood product scandal. Mícheal Martin has received a report on the drug firms, which are blamed for infecting the vast majority of haemophiliacs with HIV and hepatitis C.
Minister Martin appointed Paul Gardiner, Senior Counsel, last November following an RTÉ True Lives programme, which showed that drug firms collected plasma for blood products from prisoners, skid row and high risk donors.
Mr Gardiner travelled to the United States before Christmas to meet lawyers and assess if the State would be able to get access to thousands of internal drug firm documents, which were used in litigation and are now held at a depository at Pensacola, Florida.
The Lindsay Tribunal has established as a matter of probability that more than 90 haemophiliacs here were infected with HIV from commercial blood products - more than 60 have died as a result.
In the United States, the drug firms have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to people with haemophilia who were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products but without admitting liability.
Following discussions with Attorney General Michael McDowell, Mr Gardiner engaged the New York legal firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, as well as liasing with lawyers acting for the Irish Haemophilia Society and the Department of Health.
Judge Alison Lindsay, who is currently completing her report on Ireland's response to the infection of more than 260 haemophiliacs in Ireland with HIV and hepatitis C, refused to investigate the international pharmaceutical companies.
The Irish Haemophilia Society has been long demanding that the drug firms be investigating, arguing that they were responsible for most of the infections here and that serious questions remained about their work practices. The Department refused to release Mr Gardiner's report to RTÉ News tonight, but may publish it tomorrow.
