The long-awaited independent public inquiry into why people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood more than a generation ago was announced yesterday by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

ROBBIE DINWOODIE and ALAN MacDERMID

The long-awaited independent public inquiry into why people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood more than a generation ago was announced yesterday by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

She confirmed that the country's most experienced female judge, Lady Cosgrove, would carry out the investigation which would determine how the tragedy happened.

But the judge has been asked to keep the cost of her inquiry to £3m which means it will be expected to draw on other inquiries rather than replicate them, and the awarding of compensation will not be within her remit.

Hundreds of people in Scotland, including haemophilia sufferers and other patients, were given contaminated blood in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among those who have been campaigning for the inquiry are Rosaleen Kennedy and Annette O'Hara, whose mother, Mrs Eileen O'Hara, died after receiving contaminated blood transfusions.

Solicitor-advocate Frank Maguire, of Thompsons Solicitors, said the two daughters were delighted that the inquiry had been granted.

He added: "The key point is it will be judicially led by a Court of Session judge with the power to compel witnesses to appear, obtain documents and go where the trail takes us."

That trail, he added, would inevitably lead to Westminster and the Department of Health, since the disaster preceded devolution, though Scotland had a separate health department at the time.

Campaigners have been calling for an inquiry into how this happened for more than 15 years. The previous Scottish Executive had rejected calls for a public inquiry.

But yesterday Ms Sturgeon said the SNP was fulfilling its manifesto pledge to hold such an investigation.

In a statement to MSPs at Holyrood, she said: "The transmission of hepatitis C and HIV through blood and blood products is a tragedy that has blighted the lives of many people in Scotland.

"That is why we are committed to a thorough inquiry to get to the bottom of this. We owe an explanation to patients and the public of what took place."

She added: "No-one can undo the pain and suffering of those affected. But those individuals and families have a right to a deeper explanation of how hepatitis C and HIV came to be transmitted through NHS treatment.

"They also have a right I believe to an assurance that where there are lessons for the future, these have been learned. I hope the inquiry that I am announcing today gives them both"

In February a judge ruled that Scottish authorities had breached human rights laws by not holding fatal accident inquiries into the deaths of Mrs O'Hara, 72, and the Rev David Black, aged 66. They both died in 2003 after becoming infected with hepatitis C following NHS treatment.

Ms Sturgeon confirmed that the inquiry would investigate their deaths.