Sir, - The more I study the army deafness issue, the more concerned I become about the role of the judges. I fear they may have lost their way.
My initial interest in calling on the Government many months ago to put a process in place to cope with the unprecedented numbers of claims arose through my involvement as an audiologist of 30 years' standing. As previously stated, I have found Army people to be sincere and genuine, willing to accept my advice where I found no basis for a claim. Some were perplexed and embarrassed at the volume of claims while others were unaware that they could make a claim until they read or heard of a solicitor's advertisement. Who can blame Army personnel for succumbing to such soliciting? Who would refuse free money if it was on offer? What ethos are solicitors working from? What we see is shameless, rampant greed.
Regrettably, the public images of both the legal profession and the Army have been damaged. It need not have happened and it should not have happened. Let us hope that the image of the courts is not tarnished also.
Bearing in mind that judges were not dealing with just a once-off case or even a small number of cases that would have had no impact, but were faced with thousands of similar claims which had the potential to ruin the finances of the State, they should have recognised an unprecedented situation of national concern: an assault on the State's finances fuelled by the relentless greed of solicitors.
The fact that no proper parameters for testing hearing loss were determined in the beginning and that a distinction was not made between hearing loss and noise-induced hearing disability allowed the whole operation to get off on the wrong foot. The judges could and should have called a halt until proper parameters were in place, no matter how long this took. Hearing loss is not a matter of life and death and I believe from my own experience that decent Army claimants would have been content to wait until there was a level playing pitch for all.
The Government would have complied if the court had suspended all cases until a consensus on parameters had been reached. After all, one has to question how a judge could possibly make a correct decision in any of the cases that came to court without agreed parameters.
The citizens of this State should applaud the Minister for Defence, Michael Smith, who, in the short time since he took up the Defence portfolio three months ago, has proved to be a Minister of great substance. His, firm no-nonsense approach and decisive action are to be admired. With the promised Army Compensation Board and new legislation to stop solicitors advertising, together with the new medical committee presently sitting to agree criteria and his determination to reduce legal costs, Mr Smith has successfully taken proper control of this crisis.
Cases now being processed should be adjourned until the Army Compensation Board is ready and then referred to the board to be dealt with. The adversarial legal system has been shown to be an abject failure in matters of this nature. I understand that Mr Smith intends that once the board is formed, the handling of claims will be taken from the courts. This is a major step forward.
Interestingly, on RTE's Prime Time recently, the insurance ombudsman of Ireland, Paulyn Marrinan Quinn, although a barrister herself, recommended the alternative dispute resolution system in preference to the adversarial legal system. The ADR system would practically eliminate lawyers from the equation, and we could all get on with sorting out our differences in a much more civilised manner. - Yours, etc.,
Capel Street, Dublin 1.