I sought permission to raise this matter on the Adjournment because of the difficulty I have been experiencing by way of the unsatisfactory replies I have been receiving to questions regarding what action the Government intend to take to assist thalidomide victims. I have been raising the matter here since 1966 but to no avail.
Anybody who read this week's Sunday Times will know that that paper indicated our Government for their apparent callousness in not giving attention to this problem. During the next few minutes I hope to be able to illustrate that these unfortunate thalidomide children and their families have not been treated with the greatest sympathy. We are all aware of the dreadful deformities attributable directly to the drug, thalidomide, but because of the reticence of the Department of Health and of the Government's decision to refuse to allow publication of a report on this matter, we do not know exactly what is the extent of the deformity of the 84 children concerned. The thalidomide disaster was peculiar in so far as the deformities were specific to that drug. Apart from a few cases I am not aware of the extent of the deformities here but I would suggest that babies were born here without limbs, some deaf, some blind, some mentally deficient and others with internal abnormalities. These babies of 1962 are now becoming the deformed teenagers of 1972. This human tragedy is of a lifelong duration both for the victims and for their parents and other members of their families.
In addition to discussing the gross deformities of the victims I wish to discuss also the emotional and financial burden to the families concerned. We know of the continuing heartbreak of mothers who are experiencing the result of this tragedy. Many children are without limbs, some have bone deformities while others are minus some bones. These defects require hospitalisation. Many of the defects were discovered some years after birth.
I have asked the Minister many times whether he would consider ensuring that every thalidomide victim was afforded free, all medical and hospital services and surgical appliances but I could get no such assurance from him. The tragedy in Ireland can be attributed in no small measure to the negligence of the Department of Health who allowed, under our laws, the dispensing of this drug over the counter. The labels on the containers of the drugs carried a note which said that the drug was safe for mother and child. The Department allowed those labels to be put on the containers. When suspicions were first aroused, no effort was made by the Department to stop the sale or distribution of the drug. They did not act in November of 1961 when the deformities attributable to the drug were made known first in Germany and in Britain.
As the Sunday Times pointed out, two further months elapsed before any action was taken by the Government or by the company concerned in withdrawing the drug from the market here. Because of this I have no hesitation in indicting the Department of Health for their seeming negligence in this regard.
I asked the Minister if he would consider publishing the report of the survey that was carried out into the extent of the deformities but he told me he would not do so. As the Sunday Times pointed out also, the doctor who carried out the survey was forbidden by the Department to publish the scientific report. This was against all principles where scientific reports are concerned and I see it as an effort by the Department to cover up the extent of the deformities. In Britain and in all other countries where there are thalidomide victims such scientific reports were published. The lame excuse given by the Department for their refusal to allow publication of the report was that it might identify the victim. Scientific reports are published regularly involving people but the question of identification has never arisen.
I deplore this action by the Department and by the Minister who must accept responsibility for it. There is no valid legal or moral reason why the report should not be published.
When I asked the Minister what was the cost to date to the State in respect of these children, he told me that it would not be worth asking the health boards to provide the information because they could not identify the children. Yet, the Minister knows that there are 84 victims purporting to have deformities that are attributable to thalidomide and as every doctor knows, the deformities are specific to that drug because it was one of the interesting aspects of the drug that it produced specific deformities. Therefore, there is no difficulty whatever in recognising the particular conditions but I cannot accept the Minister's reply to the effect that there is difficulty in establishing the identity of children whose handicaps are due to their mothers having taken this drug. The Minister told me that it would take too long to establish the frequency and cost of the services provided. This would be very necessary information in giving us an indication of the extent of the deformities and of the extent and frequencies of hospitalisation for these children.
Time and again the Minister has told me that the matter is the responsibility of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is merely acting on behalf of the Minister for Health, who must accept the responsibility for this tragedy, and who is trying to evade his responsibility when he says that the matter is one for the Department of Foreign Affairs. The only positive step taken by the Minister or his predecessor was the insertion in the national newspapers of an advertisement asking the parents of these victims to notify the Department of the degree of the deformity so that the information could be passed to the German company but they made it clear that any claim on behalf of the victims was the responsibility of the claimant. The Department denied any responsibility in this regard and would not undertake any action on behalf of the parents in their claim for compensation. This is a deplorable situation especially in view of the tragedy involved. The insertion of the advertisement could not be construed as being positive Government intervention.
There has been no effort to my knowledge of medical assessment in this country by doctors on behalf of the German company. I would have thought that this would be a very constructive gesture on the part of the Government to insist on this being done by the German medical assessors so that we might be able to decide what compensation would be due to the victims. If the Minister says that the Sunday Times article is incorrect or that the paper is irresponsible in its statement, he has not issued any official denial of the facts that these people will not receive proper compensation. I heard tonight that the British distillers' company have announced that they are setting up a fund to provide £12 million during a ten-year period for 242 victims. This amounts to £50,000 per victim and if this is accepted by the claimants the sum of £2,500 will be paid immediately in respect of each victim. This is positive action but so far as we are concerned we do not know whether any money is to be made available for victims here. This is where I say the Minister has contradicted himself. He says that the Department are not responsible and that the people concerned must make their own individual claims. Despite this he said on the radio the other night that the Department of Foreign Affairs were negotiating with the German company on behalf of the victims. I would like the Minister to clarify this point because there appears to be a contradiction in what he said.
It would appear from what the Sunday Times has stated and from their research work into this matter that the ex gratia payment to these victims will be minimal. We have a greater obligation than this to these people who through no fault of their own are victims of this great tragedy. They trusted the directions and felt they had some security in purchasing a drug which was freely available over the counter. I indict the Department of Health for negligence in this matter and for treating these people with complete indifference.
I believe the Minister is sympathetic to these people but I think he should accept, first, full responsibility for the legal cost for these people. We have no free legal aid in this country. It has been pointed out that legal costs for these people is enormous. Secondly, the Minister should make a declaration that medicines, hospitalisation and all surgical appliances will be supplied free for these victims, irrespective of the income of their families. This should be for the rest of their lives because they will need continuous care, attention, artificial limbs and other appliances. There is a moral obligation on us to provide these for them.
Thirdly, I would like to see the Government set up a trust fund similar to that provided by the British Government to assist with the financial burden involved in the welfare of these children for the rest of their lives. This would not be a great burden on the State as we have spent money foolishly in the past. It would be a great help to thalidomide children and other children disabled as a result of congenital abnormalities.
The assistance we are looking for is not specifically for thalidomide children but was prompted by the thalidomide tragedy. The Minister for Health should not state that he will ask the Government to set up a fund to provide for these children. This would be a very humane gesture to these people. We cannot solve the problems for them; we cannot restore limbs which have not grown or are deformed; we cannot restore normality to them but we can ease their burden, let them know there is national sympathy for them and we can ensure that there is no financial burden on them for the rest of their lives. We should ensure that the welfare of these children is provided for under a proper trust.
I ask the Minister seriously to consider the points I have raised. It should not be a party political issue. I also ask him to reconsider the question of passing the responsibility to the Department of Foreign Affairs. I would like him to state that he and his Department will accept full responsibility and that the Department of Foreign Affairs will only act as his agents in negotiating on his behalf. The cases should be tried in the Irish courts and there should be some means of having representatives of Chemie-Grünenthal subpoenaed to attend the Irish courts so that those cases could be resolved here. The Minister should seek legal advice on this matter. These people have enough tragedy in their lives without having to go to Germany where they have a serious language problem.