The Government will not appeal the High Court awards made last Friday to two haemophiliacs infected with hepatitis C.
The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said in the Dáil yesterday that the decision had been made not to appeal the cases of two men who had their compensation from the hepatitis C compensation tribunal doubled.
The Government had been criticised for fighting the cases.
The Fine Gael spokesman on health, Mr Gay Mitchell, said yesterday there had been a threat in the High Court last week to put the Department of Health into receivership because of the non-payment of a court order in the case of the hepatitis C tribunal.
Last Friday's cases involved two men who had their awards from the tribunal doubled by the High Court. The victims' appeals were upheld after the time allowed for them had run out. The compensation tribunal was set up in the mid-1990s to grant awards to victims of hepatitis C from contaminated blood products.
In 1997, when the compensation tribunal was established on a statutory basis, claimants were given six months from the enactment of the statute on November 1st, 1997, to appeal.
In essence, if a case was heard on October 29th, 1997, there was an entitlement to avail of a six-month period to appeal, but if it was heard on November 3rd, 1997, the claimant had one month to appeal. One of the men's compensation hearings took place at the beginning of November.
In early 1998 the then President of the High Court, Mr Frederick Morris, removed the cap on damages. This resulted in court appeals from people whose cases had come to the tribunal before November 1st, 1997.
However, a number of cases heard after November 1st were also appealed, including the two that came before Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill for appeal last week.
However, the fact that they were outside the time limit was apparently not noticed. The two cases were first heard by the High Court in January and June 2001.
The Minister for Health had refused to honour last year's awards to the two men because they had not lodged their cases in time and because they had confirmed in writing they would accept the tribunal's original offer.