Blood tribunal legal costs top €63 million

LEGAL costs in the hepatitis C and HIV Tribunal have amounted to over €63 million to date.

That is in addition to €469m already paid out in awards and reparation.

The figures feature in the tribunal’s latest annual report, and were reported by the Irish Medical News yesterday.

The tribunal was set up by the Government in 1995 to compensate those infected with hepatitis C as a result of contaminated blood products. In 2002, the tribunal’s remit was broadened to include those who had contracted HIV in the same way.

Since its establishment, victims have received a total of €336m in tribunal awards, €56m in High Court awards, and €77m in reparation fund payments.

Last year, the tribunal paid out over €35m in compensation, and over €6.5m in legal costs.

Some €27.9m of the 2003 compensation figure related to 108 new awards made by the tribunal, while €7.3m emanated from 29 increases in compensation awarded by the High Court on appeal.

The average award the tribunal made last year, according to the annual report, was €224,544.91.

Individual awards ranged from €5,000 to €2m.

Some 361 new claims were submitted to the tribunal in 2003, bringing the total since its establishment to 2,678.

The broadening of its remit led to many of the new cases, the tribunal pointed out.

The report notes that a number of cases have been withdrawn, while the tribunal has itself adjourned almost 90 cases.

“Cases where there has been no attempt to pursue the claim for some considerable time have been adjourned generally by the tribunal, though each claimant may apply to have his/her claim re-entered. There are 87 claims currently in this category,” the report said.

The tribunal said it was anxious that all people who might be entitled to apply for compensation were aware of its existence and how to apply.

Applications can be downloaded from the tribunal’s website at www.hepccomptrib.com.