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12/29/2004: "What? What did you say? It's over? What?"

Looks like the army deafness claims should be coming to an end soon. Overall liability will end up somewhere around €300 million [registration required] (€277 paid out so far). Not bad considering they had estimated it would be well over €1 billion.
Was it Andrews or the late Hugh Coveney who made the decision to not contest the deafness claims? Such an idiotic decision, I can still rememebr the laughs of some of the lads I knew in our local barracks, they thought christmas had come early.
Michael Smith has done a lot of work to limit the damage by introducing a settlement scheme. Smith seems to have done quite a lot for the Defence Forces going by this reposted Sunday Indo article. We need a strong Defence Minister to take the Defence Forces into the 21st century. They have made great strides in recent years, as have the Reserve Forces, lets hope it continues under O'Dea.