SIGNIFICANT progress has been made during the past week in closing the gap between the Department of Health and a group campaigning on behalf of people who have contracted Hepatitis C from infected blood or blood products, said the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan.
"There is still a difference of opinion between Positive Action and the Department of Health about some aspects of the compensation tribunal. Significant progress has been made in closing the gap this week.
"And I am prepared to close the gap further and provide the modifications and the clarifications which are necessary so that as well as having full satisfaction of life long health care, women and men infected with Hepatitis C will also have the choice of processing their claim for compensation either in the High Court or through the compensation tribunal."
Mr Noonan's remarks came as representatives of Positive Action maintained a day long picket outside the RDS. They said they were there because they wanted justice, not charity.
"Positive Action members have overwhelmingly rejected the tribunal as unfair and flawed because it does not give women a right to have their doctors heard in their case; it has no power to compel witnesses to attend; there is no right to a provisional award and no contract to ensure this tribunal will remain in existence," a representative said.
Mr Noonan told the ardfheis health insurance cover for psychiatric patients is to be at least doubled from the proposed 40 days minimum cover.
On the nurses dispute, Ms Nuala Ryan (Dublin South East) said that the profession was a vital part of the health service. "No other part of the service offers the standards of nurses for the rates of pay they receive. And a question I have to ask is: are nurses badly paid because the majority of them are women?"
Mr Noonan said he was committed to negotiating a satisfactory settlement with the nursing unions, and he was approaching the negotiations with imagination and flexibility.
