My efforts were a waste of time, says campaigner

ROSEMARY DALY, the tough-talking woman who led a tiny Irish haemophilia community in their fight for justice, now feels her efforts were a waste of time.

"I feel it was. They are harsh words I know, but nobody was held accountable," said Ms Daly, who has decided to give up her role as administrator of the Irish Haemophilia Society.

The 46-year-old mother of two had urged haemophiliacs infected with HIV and hepatitis C as a result of receiving contaminated blood products to participate in the Lindsay Tribunal because they might get answers.

"I know good things came out of it. I know the services have improved and the media coverage helped a lot of people affected by the scandal to speak about their situation. But that was not what the tribunal was about."

The whole point of having a tribunal in the first place was to try and explain the inexplicable and that didn't happen, she said.

More than 100 haemophiliacs contracted HIV and more than 260 contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood products. Eighty-one have died to date including one man this year.

While the tribunal's terms of reference allowed it to "investigate anything arising outside the State that it considers relevant", the international dimension was never explored.

The IHS had expected the role of the international drug firms in the drug contamination crisis by the tribunal and wrote again and again to tribunal chairperson Judge Alison Lindsay asking for the matter to be clarified.

"It appears that any time we wrote to her we were either too early in raising the issue, had chosen an inopportune time, or were too late. That's incredible when you think about it."

Asked if she had faith in the Irish Blood Transfusion Service now, Ms Daly said she felt she had to because there was really no alternative. But she still felt not enough significant changes had been made by the blood bank since the 197-page Finlay report was published in 1997, particularly at management level.

Ms Daly admitted that her quest for justice for infected haemophiliacs became an obsession and one that almost wrecked her marriage to her husband, Arthur. They separated for a couple of months and then got back together.

While Ms Daly is confident the IHS can go on without her she is still frustrated by the way the State abandoned its most vulnerable citizens.

"When are we going stand up and tell our politicians we should not be forgotten once they enter Leinster House?" she asked.

The haemophilia community found that no one wanted to listen to them unless they constantly pushed and screamed about their situation. "You shouldn't have to do that," she said.