Vol. 494 No. 3
152 Ms Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Defence the reason a tribunal has not been set up to deal with the issue of army deafness; and the steps, if any, he has to appeal any of the awards made prior to the closure of the courts session in summer 1998. [18101/98]
As I have said on many occasions in the past, I am anxious to ensure that genuine cases of hearing disability are compensated for as speedily as possible and that the most cost effective way of achieving this is by way of some form of out of court settlement procedure. Following the judgment in the first Green Book test case in May last, Green v Minister for Defence, I announced that I was hopeful that I could bring proposals to Government for approval to establish a compensation mechanism outside the courts. However, the outcome of a second test case in July, Hanley v Minister for Defence has brought huge cost implications to bear on this proposal. I believe that these costs are beyond what the taxpayer is willing to bear.
If a tribunal is to be effective, it would be necessary to make awards which are in line with awards made in court; there would continue to be costs associated with legal representation; and because nobody can forecast how many of the potential 150,000 current and former members of the Defence Forces would be likely to claim, it would be impossible to provide a reasoned cost projection of the establishment of a tribunal. In effect, there is no guarantee that a tribunal would improve the current situation or accrue tangible savings, and the foregoing factors therefore combine to prohibit the serious consideration of the establishment of a tribunal at this stage.
With regard to Supreme Court appeals, a number of claims on which High Court decisions were reached prior to the close of the Trinity term have been submitted for appeal to the Supreme Court. This includes the Hanley case referred to above.
