Uncomfortable parallels with Brigid McCole case must unsettle Fine Gael

Two words that haunted Fine Gael for many years were uttered in the Dáil yesterday by Solidary TD Ruth Coppinger. Brigid McCole.

This is the name of a woman who died in 1996 as a result of being poisoned by the State with infected blood. She sued and was hounded into a settlement on her deathbed by a State using the full power of its legal and financial muscle. Michael Noonan was minister for health at the time. He and Fine Gael paid a heavy price when the full details of the case emerged in the weeks and months after Mrs McCole’s death.