Minister served with 'HIV' writ

The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, was yesterday served with the first in a series of writs to be issued in the run-up to the general election by haemophiliacs infected with HIV through contaminated blood products.

The writ was served in the name of a "Christmas Disease" sufferer who was infected with the virus through a Blood Transfusion Service Board clotting agent.

The move came as Mr Martin met a group of haemophiliacs and their next-of-kin in his Cork constituency, where anger was expressed at his failure to introduce legislation overturning the terms of a 1991 settlement with HIV-infected haemophiliacs.

In 1999 the Government pledged to introduce such legislation after conceding the settlement had not been fair.

Ms Rosemary Daly, administrator of the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS), described the meeting as "highly emotional". Twenty of the society's members attended, including Mr Joseph Healy from Greenmount, whose son, Gerard, died of an AIDS-related illness in 1998.

"All you could hear at one point was people crying. He [the Minister\] was very moved by it," said Ms Daly.

She added: "They want to put it behind them and for all the publicity to stop. But you can't move on when you open the paper every day, and it's still going on and they told him he was the only man who could stop it."

The Minister said he would raise the issue with his Cabinet colleagues next Wednesday and would be in a position to show the society the heads of a Bill next Thursday, according to Ms Daly.

She noted, however, this would not be the end of the road for haemophiliacs. "We are going to have issues with whatever is presented to us. But we will work 24 hours a day to bring it to a conclusion," she said. In the absence of a resolution to the issue, the society's members would continue serving writs against the Minister.

"It was agreed by our members that we would issue one every week until the legislation has gone through," she added.

"What we have now is a promise from the Minister given in circumstances of a very emotional meeting. We are putting a lot of faith in him."

A spokesman for Mr Martin said because the meeting was private he could not comment on it. He confirmed, however, that Mr Martin would be meeting the IHS next Thursday, adding: "All relevant issues will be discussed".

He noted that the Minister would also next week present to Cabinet the Gardiner report on the feasibility of a tribunal of inquiry into the role of overseas drugs firms in the infection tragedy. The IHS is seeking such an inquiry.

An estimated 105 haemophiliacs in the State were infected with HIV. Some 64 have since died.