A senior official with the Blood Transfusion Service Board was also the director of a company which supplied the board, the tribunal heard yesterday.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr John Trainor SC, claimed Mr Sean Hanratty, the chief technical officer with the BTSB, was a director of AcuScience, which supplied blood bags to the board.
Mr Trainor asked Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (formerly the BTSB), about the matter, and also asked whether work being carried out on home production of clotting agents at Pelican House was being undertaken for Mr Hanratty in a personal capacity.
A document opened to the tribunal showed work on an intermediate purity Factor 8 clotting agent was being undertaken at Pelican House in August 1981. The document noted that the work was "for Sean Hanratty".
Questioned about why the work was for him, Dr Lawlor said she would not attach any significance to this note. She said if she requested a task to be carried out it might have "for Dr Lawlor" noted at the top.
Mr Trainor said it did not appear that any other work carried out was for somebody in particular. Mr Hanratty was in 1982 the director of a company that supplied bags to the board.
Dr Lawlor said she did not think it was at that time. "I'm not sure of the time but I would have thought it was much later," she said.
"So he was the director of a company that supplied the board at one stage?" Mr Trainor asked.
In reply, Dr Lawlor said: "I'm not saying that", adding that this was something another witness from the BTSB would deal with.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Finlay SC, said he could not see how this inference was based on documents opened to the tribunal. Mr Frank Clarke SC, counsel for the BTSB, also objected. "I have a concern that from time to time accusations appear to be made without the ground being made for them," he said.
Accusations were being put on the public record and left hanging on the public record without the BTSB having an opportunity to clarify them, and this was unfair to the board. Dr Lawlor was not the witness to deal with the accusations being made when the allegations did not arise in the documents before her.
Mr Trainor said his clients were not at the tribunal to make allegations. "They are, like many people, outsiders and wish to have these facts investigated."
He added that the matter could perhaps be clarified if Mr Clarke took instructions on it. The tribunal chairwoman, Judge Alison Lindsay, said that if the ground had not been laid for a point, then it was inappropriate to make it.