A row broke out at the Lindsay tribunal yesterday when a legal representative for the Irish Haemophilia Society said he could not take instructions from a client who contracted HIV from contaminated blood products because he was dead.
Mr Martin Hayden made the point in relation to a 13-yearold boy, John Kelly from Shankill, Dublin, who died of AIDS in 1994. His father Raymond gave evidence last May.
Mr Hayden was putting it to Prof Ian Temperley, former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, that he stood at the end of John's bed shortly before his death and told the child's mother "he may recover from this and then again he may not". He said the child was within earshot and he suggested to Prof Temperley this was unacceptable.
Mr Brian McGovern SC, counsel for Prof Temperley, asked: "Do we know if the child was asleep or sedated?" If he was, any of these the comments might not have been inappropriate, he said. Mr Hayden said his instructions were that John was conscious and within earshot. "I have no instructions from John. He is dead," he said.
The chairwoman, Judge Alison Lindsay, said this comment was uncalled for. She said she would rise and when she returned she wanted Mr Hayden to proceed in an orderly and calm fashion.
Prof Temperley stated that if he said anything that could have been hurtful to any member of the Kelly family, he regretted it but it was not his practice to say things like that. He added his relationship with the child's father was not good. He felt Mr Kelly's attitude was not helping his son and he acknowledged accusing him of being selfish at one stage. "Maybe it was the wrong term to use but it was the way I felt at the time," he said.