Proposals will go to the Cabinet shortly on compensation for haemophiliacs infected with HIV by contaminated blood products, the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, said yesterday.
If the proposals are agreeable to the Irish Haemophilia Society and to the Opposition parties, they could be passed by the Oireachtas during the lifetime of the Government, he said.
Mr Martin was replying to complaints by the Irish Haemophilia Society that he had failed to extend the scope of the hepatitis C compensation tribunal to include haemophiliacs infected with HIV.
Haemophiliacs with HIV were given ex-gratia compensation by the Government in 1991.
This amounted to an average of about £70,000 each, with individual amounts ranging from £20,000 to £100,000.
The IHS contends that this was inadequate and was only accepted by families because they were desperate and under duress.
Yesterday the IHS chairman, Mr Brian O'Mahony, said the society felt "frustration and despair" at the failure of the Government to deliver on this commitment. The society's administrator, Ms Rosemary Daly, complained that "endless submissions, endless meetings, endless phone calls" had so far produced nothing.