Just over £144 million has been paid out to date in settlement of Army deafness claims, the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, said in the Dail yesterday. This includes £100.4 million in damages and a further £43.8 million in legal costs.
Up to the end of March, 15,640 claims had been received from current and former members of the Defence Forces for hearing loss "allegedly caused during their military service", he added.
Some 256 court awards were made and a further 7,422 were dealt with through out-of-court settlements. A further 7,587 claims are stilling outstanding and 375 claims were either withdrawn or dismissed.