A common thread in the Blood Transfusion Service Board's defence at the Lindsay tribunal is it was not significantly different in its handling of the HIV and hepatitis C crises to other blood boards throughout the world.
That argument took a severe blow yesterday when it was confirmed the UK's National Health Service issued a formal recall of all Factor 9 clotting agents which had not been heat treated - and were therefore potentially infectious - in October 1985, eight months before the BTSB did. The tribunal heard that if the BTSB had acted with the same speed as its British counterpart, many of the seven haemophilia B patients who tested positive for HIV up to August 1986 would have been spared.
It was also revealed that a much higher proportion of haemophilia patients here contracted the AIDS virus compared to other countries.
Some 70 per cent of patients with severe haemophilia A, the most common form of the condition, were infected. About 15 per cent of mild haemophilia A patients and almost a quarter of severe haemophilia B patients also contracted HIV.
In contrast, around 10 per cent of Northern Ireland's haemophilia community was infected.
Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), as the BTSB is now known, is to return to this issue today when she will be challenged on her contention that 95 per cent of HIV infections had occurred by 1983.
A document prepared by Prof Ian Temperley, former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, suggests that, in contrast, up to 60 per cent of haemophilia A infections occurred in 1983 and 1984.
Dr Lawlor yesterday contested another document prepared by Prof Temperley which recorded the occurrence of eight, rather than seven, cases of haemophilia B infections with HIV. She said she had spoken to Prof Temperley during the lunch break yesterday and he confirmed to her he had made a mistake.
Prof Temperley will give evidence at a later sitting.
Among the other main findings to emerge yesterday was the discovery that up to 200 vials, or packs, of potentially infectious Factor 9 were unaccounted for in the board's records.
Dr Lawlor conceded this was less than satisfactory although she stressed there was no evidence any of the product causing infections.
Of the material that could be traced, it was revealed that some of it was given to a non-haemophiliac patient at the Mater Hospital who was undergoing a liver transplant. The date of administration was not disclosed but Dr Lawlor said the patient died shortly after his transplant operation so the Factor 9 was not an issue.
Dr Lawlor, who spent her 16th day in the box yesterday, is coming to the end of her evidence. Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr John Trainor SC, has indicated it will require only two more days to complete its cross-examination. However, he said he would reserve the right to call Dr Lawlor back at a later stage.
The tension between counsel for the IHS and the tribunal's legal team continued yesterday when Mr Trainor accused the IBTS of "going behind [the] backs" of haemophiliacs, in its preparations for the tribunal, by examining confidential patient records without the consent of infected patients or their relatives.
While Judge Alison Linsday described the issue as "a red herring", it does raise questions about whether the IBTS could be doing more to take into account the sensitivities of haemophiliacs and avoid further antagonism.
It is understandable that relatives of victims might have preferred if the records had been released directly to the tribunal rather than through the blood bank, and this raises a further question as to why the tribunal's legal team did not seek them instead.