State may sue blood scandal companies

THE Attorney General (AG) is to seek legal advice from a US firm on the feasibility of suing the American multinationals that provided contaminated blood products to Irish hospitals.

It is the second effort the AG has made to obtain an opinion from American lawyers on the merits of taking such a case. Initial efforts were hampered, it is understood, because the lawyers first approached had "a conflict of interest" in relation to the case.

According to the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS), 326 haemophiliacs were infected with either hepatitis C or HIV as a result of receiving transfusions of the contaminated blood, and 84 have since died.