AN official at the Department of Health has defended its record of treating women infected with the hepatitis C virus after the scandal broke in February 1994.
Ms Dolores Moran, a higher executive officer at the time, said the Department "did everything possible", given the knowledge of the disease three years ago.
Patients with the virus were referred to hepatology consultants and those who had hepatitis C could have been referred by GPs, if this was requested.
With hindsight, people should have been informed of an unpublicised ex gratia expenses scheme, which they only became aware of by contacting the Department.
A request was being considered now to provide counselling at the compensation tribunal, which claimants were finding distressful. The 1996 Health Act gave a free GP service, free counselling and home nursing for infected women.
She was critical of the Blood Transfusion Service Board's response as the crisis became known, saying it initially failed to provide information that Patient X had hepatitis symptoms in 1976, or that Patient Y had tested positive for hepatitis C in 1992.
"That was information that was never communicated to the Department ... we have a difficulty even still to get some information and we needed information all the time, obviously, for the Minister to relay to the Dail," she said.
The Department could have followed the BTSB's suggestion to test only between 6,000 and 8,000 women given the anti D product between 1977 and 1979, instead of the final screening programme the Department recommended, to include all 60,000 anti D recipients.
But the BTSB "had worked night and day" to operate the screening tests and no other institution was in a position to undertake the programme, she said.