DPP to meet AG over blood scandal outcome

The Attorney General is expected to meet the Director of Public Prosecutions this week to discuss changes in legislation following the decision not to prosecute anyone in relation to the hepatitis C scandal.

Members of Positive Action, the group representing women infected by contaminated anti-D, met the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, on Friday. They asked him to convene a statutory meeting with the Attorney General, Mr David Byrne.

Positive Action said in a statement that it did not accept that the DPP, Mr Eamon Barnes, was precluded from prosecuting anyone in relation to the anti-D contamination.

The group maintained that legal precedent from a 1948 Court of Criminal Appeal case, The People v John Dunleavy, could be applied to the circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Bridget McCole.

Following a report in yesterday's Sunday Tribune, a Government spokesman said that the AG was considering a "statutory meeting" with the DPP. "The Attorney General had already initiated contact with the DPP's office in relation to whatever deficiencies there were in the legislation."

The spokesman said that this contact occurred last Wednesday, before Mr Cowen met Positive Action.

It is understood that any change in the law would not affect those involved in the hepatitis C scandal, as it could not be applied retrospectively. Any new provisions could only be used in future cases.

The case cited by Positive Action as grounds for a prosecution is believed to include a limited time frame within which a prosecution can be pursued.

Positive Action insisted its advice was that if the death of Mrs McCole was properly investigated, with a full file submitted to the DPP, the state of Irish law would admit the maintenance of a prosecution against the persons responsible for her death.

In a letter to Mr Cowen on Friday, the group said that the report of the Finlay inquiry into the contamination took a firm view that certain personnel of the Blood Transfusion Service Board bore a "high responsibility" for the infection of anti-D with hepatitis C. The letter added: "The tribunal of inquiry could not determine issues of criminal responsibility."