It was predictable that the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, would reject the Opposition's request to make public the legal advice given to the Government in the case of the late Mrs Bridget McCole. It is equally predictable that the Opposition will in the weeks before an election continue to bay for the Minister's political blood. The whole hepatitis C scandal was, is, and will remain a sensitive issue in which sensitivity has not always been evident in the State's handling of it.
It is perfectly understandable that the McCole family, who have behaved with great fortitude and dignity throughout their personal tragedy, should continue to seek the fullest possible revelation of the parts played by all involved.
To a certain extent, Mr Noonan has become the political victim of a situation which he inherited, a situation which was the responsibility of his predecessors in office. To a greater extent he has become the victim of a political parsimony which would try to protect the taxpayers' interests. He is also a victim of the fact that the courts work on an adversarial system in which attacks and defences must be complete before the case is heard. Clearly, the Government's legal advisers could not afford to be second guessed by whatever case might be brought against the State.
The late Mrs McCole, being the brave and determined woman that she was, had little choice but to bring a legal action against the State if she and her family were to get the justice they deserved. There was precious little sign at that time that the Minister or the State's various agencies were going to leave her claims go uncontested. It took everyone, including the various servants of the State, a long time to realise the enormity of the damage done by the contamination of the Blood Bank's supplies of anti D immunoglobulin. The response of the Minister at almost every turn in the controversy was one of "too little, too late". He was not alone in that. As recently as a year ago it is likely that his approach would probably have been approved by a majority of taxpayers. And it is doubtful that any other Minister for Health, from whichever political party, would have responded in any different manner.
But there were two different sets of obligations bearing on the Minister in this case. There was the legal obligation to protect the State's financial resources. There was also the moral obligation to redress injury and injustice. The State's bureaucracy was, and is, well equipped to deal with the legal obligations and the legal advice and strategy offered to the State was doubtless designed to do just that. But a Minister represents more than just the top of the State's bureaucracy. It is a Minister's responsibility to set policy and to act politically to ensure fairness for all members of society.
It is hard, particularly with the subsequent hindsight offered in Mr Justice Finlay's report from the Tribunal, to argue that Mrs McCole or her family were offered fairness. It was some time after her tragic death before other victims of hepatitis C began to see even the beginnings of some kind of fair compensation for their pain and injury. It will be some more before all the dust has settled, justice has been done, and the national blood supply restored to its proper reliability. Meanwhile, Mr Noonan will have to continue to bear his political cross, his only consolation being, perhaps, that his is a smaller and lighter cross than those borne by the women who were the ultimate victims of the whole scandal.