The High Court has narrowed the documents the State must disclose in a soldier’s personal injury case alleging that taking the anti-malaria drug Lariam during three overseas deployments caused psychiatric injury.
DS enlisted in the Irish Army in 1997 and served in Eritrea in 2002, Liberia in 2005 and Chad in 2008. He alleges that Lariam, or mefloquine, was prescribed before, during and after those deployments and caused depression and related symptoms for which he remains on medication.
His allegations include that Defence Forces medical personnel failed to warn him adequately about possible psychiatric side effects and continued prescribing Lariam despite what he says was a severe panic attack in Liberia. The State denies negligence, breach of contract and causation and has also pleaded that the claim is statute-barred and affected by delay.
The immediate dispute concerned discovery — the pre-trial process requiring relevant documents to be disclosed. A Deputy Master had ordered ten categories in April 2024, with the State appealing five. One was later resolved by agreement, leaving four for Mr Justice Barr to determine.
The judge removed a category covering pre- and post-deployment records because it substantially duplicated DS’s medical and personnel files. He also removed two categories concerning Defence Forces research and discussions about purchasing Lariam between 1992 and 2002, finding that those matters were not pleaded as part of DS’s case and that the requests were too broad.
A fourth category sought records of adverse reactions reported by soldiers serving in the same battalions and periods as DS. The court accepted that such material was relevant but found the proposed exercise disproportionately burdensome.
Instead, the State must provide an alternative set of discovery previously assembled in another Lariam case, O’Shea v Minister for Defence, containing redacted medical records relating to 163 current and former Defence Forces personnel who had brought Lariam injury proceedings.
The ruling determines the scope of discovery only. It does not decide whether Lariam caused DS’s alleged injuries or whether the State was negligent. The court also proposed expedited case management because the proceedings date from 2019 and concern events beginning in 2002.