Vol. 478 No. 4
4 Mr. M. Smith asked the Minister for Defence the number of ex-soldiers who have commenced actions against the State arising out of the failure of his Department over a 30 year period to provide proper hearing protection to soldiers during the course of their training. [11484/97]
There are approximately 3,000 claims from former members of the Defence Forces alleging some degree of hearing impairment due to negligence. As I said in the Adjournment debate on 4 March, liability is an issue in each claim. It cannot be assumed a plaintiff's loss of hearing is attributable to his service in the Defence Forces or that the military authorities were negligent. Ear defenders have been provided to military personnel for many years. The plaintiff may have subjected himself to some other source of acoustic trauma, for example, as a member of a gun club, or there may be medical evidence to suggest some other cause of his deafness, for example, a previous illness or ear infection.I am advised that many of the claimants suffer from minor handicaps as assessed in accordance with international best practice. In this context, it is incumbent on me to contest those cases where I am advised that little or no compensation would be paid in other jurisdictions.
What percentage of the actions contested by the Minister have succeeded?
I do not have that information with me but I can send it to the Deputy. Since 1992, 359 cases have been settled at a cost of approximately £12.7 million, including legal costs. The projected cost to the State of the claims in hand, including legal costs, is in excess of £270 million. This is before any State's costs are included which would bring the total to £350 million.
Given that 359 cases have been settled since 1992 at a cost of approximately £12.7 million in circumstances where the Department rigorously contested the views and medical evidence put forward in defence of these soldiers who suffered pain and discomfort, will the Minister agree there is a serious problem in this area? Is his Department claiming statute of limitations in regard to other long-standing cases?
On the latter question, that is a matter for our legal advisers in the Chief State Solicitor's office. The high level of compensation awarded by the courts is for hearing patterns which would be regarded in other jurisdictions as coming within the normal range of relatively low levels of hearing handicap and, as a result, would attract little or no compensation. The problem is that to date the courts have apparently not accepted the difference between hearing loss and hearing handicap, which is the key issue. If I had time I could outline in detail the differences between hearing loss and hearing handicap, how they are assessed etc. However, I will give the Deputy one example. In a recent High Court action the judge found that the plaintiff was exaggerating his hearing loss and said he was satisfied that he had normal hearing. However, he awarded him £20,000 on the grounds that he was satisfied that if he had not joined the Army his hearing would probably have been better.
The Deputy will appreciate the need for consistency when dealing with such issues. We are talking about large sums of taxpayers' money and in cases where an individual suffers injury or loss of hearing or a hearing handicap during the course of his or her employment then I have a moral obligation, on behalf of taxpayers, to ensure that the State meets its liability. However, I also have an obligation to contest other cases in which the State does not have a liability. For this reason we have gone to extraordinary lengths, and will continue to do so, to get the best professional advice in establishing a pattern which clearly indicates whether the hearing loss was incurred during the course of the person's employment or for some other reason or whether, like us all, the person's hearing disimproved as he became older.
I assure the Deputy that where the evidence shows the hearing loss relates to the time spent by the person in the Defence Forces efforts are made to settle the claim at an early stage. The settlement of any claim involves both parties and if the other party is not happy with the award or level of compensation then he or she has the right to go to court. This would be the case regardless of whether there was a tribunal.
I do not wish to support frivolous cases or to embroil the State in incurring expenditure which is not justified. However, we are all aware of the State's defence in a recent sad case involving another Department and people's medical problems. In cases where the pain, discomfort and other problems arose as a direct result of service to the State then there must be proper accountability. I have no interest in supporting frivolous cases and do not want to embroil the State in incurring unnecessary expenditure, but we are all aware of what happened in this recent case.
I presume the Deputy is referring to the hepatitis C issue. There is no comparison between the two sets of circumstances.
Let us not get into this area.
