Mishandling of McCole case an Achilles' heel
He apologised for the affair and admitted frankly that it had damaged his political career.
He will be hoping he has dealt effectively with what he identified as one of the two most difficult events of his entire political career.
The handling of the McCole case has been viewed as his political Achilles heel. But his supporters were last night saying they believed he had dealt with the matter in the best possible manner when it arose again yesterday. At the height of the Hepatitis C controversy, he asked was it in the interests of Mrs McCole "to attempt to run the case not only in the High Court but in the media and in the Dail simultaneously".
The Positive Action Group walked out of the Dail in protest at his remarks about Mrs McCole.
Mr Noonan apologised afterwards for the remarks.
Yesterday Mr Noonan became emotional as he recalled the event. Admitting the "damage" the McCole affair had caused him politically, Mr Noonan said: "I handled many things very well in that - the greatest health scandal that ever occurred in this country and I provided good health services for all the women who were involved and infected by the infection which began in 1977.
"I took over from Brendan Howlin in the middle of the Miriam Hederman-O'Brien inquiry into these events and I put in place a compensation tribunal which has proved satisfactory in processing the compensation claims of those who were entitled to compensation.
"The test of that is that nobody went to the High Court everybody was satisfied at the tribunal," he said.
"But if I were handling the case of Mrs McCole again, I certainly would do it differently.
"I certainly could be accused of relying too much on legal advice and not exercising my own political judgment in that case," he said.
- Gene McKenna
