Money and missing documents were the two issues which dominated yesterday's hearing of the Lindsay tribunal.
Regarding documents, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (as the BTSB is now known) made the extraordinary admission that it destroyed all its pre1986 dispatch records, showing where particular contaminated blood products were sent, in or around 1995.
This was at the same time that a number of haemophiliacs were suing the board over infections and calling for an independent inquiry.
It was also the year that Mrs Brigid McCole and a number of other women infected with hepatitis C through a contaminated anti-D product initiated High Court actions against the board. Mrs McCole's death in October 1996 led to the establishment of the Finlay tribunal by the then minister for health, Mr Michael Noonan.
On the second day of her cross-examination, Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the blood service, said the documents were destroyed in bulk.
No explanation was given for their destruction and Dr Lawlor said she was unaware who gave the order. However, she said she would endeavor to find out and, given the timing of the destruction, the tribunal will await her response with interest.
On the other issue of money, it was argued at length yesterday by counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr John Trainor SC, that profit rather than patient care was the main concern of the BTSB in its dealings with haemophiliacs.
On Monday, the tribunal heard the BTSB became a selling agent in 1974 for Travenol, a pharmaceutical company which made a commercial blood product over which the board, until then, had serious safety concerns. The realisation that the BTSB could have made a 3p profit per unit, along with a 10 per cent commission by becoming a distributor, seemed to have swung its opinion.
Yesterday, Mr Trainor suggested the profit motive was at the heart of other decisions made by the board and, in doing so, he focused on the character of the late Dr Jack O'Riordan, former national director of the BTSB.
A founder member of the board, Dr O'Riordan was in his 60s and close to retirement during the period under examination. He eventually retired in December 1985, aged 71, and died two years later, shortly after the publication of the Finlay report which cited him as bearing "major responsibility" for the anti-D infections.
Mr Trainor portrayed Dr O'Riordan as someone of very fixed opinions who regarded the demand from haemophilia treaters for the BTSB to start producing its own concentrated blood products for haemophiliacs rather than importing them, as "extreme" due to the cost of such a project.
He changed his mind on the issue, said Mr Trainor, only after realising there was "a further profit opportunity" in self-sufficiency. This opportunity arose in 1984 when an overseas company offered to pay the board for Irish plasma and sell products back at a lower cost.
A document prepared by Mr Trainor, and briefly shown to the tribunal, estimated the BTSB's profits on imported commercial concentrates, based on a 3p take on each unit, increased 50-fold between 1975 and 1985, from £1,725 to £90,590.40.
Throughout, however, Dr Lawlor denied that the profit motive was central to decision-making. She also stressed that she was not an expert on finances. Another member of the board is due to give evidence in this area.
Dr Lawlor also continued to reject the claim that the board had some responsibility for the imported products which it was distributing. She said she did not accept that by acting as a selling agent of such products the BTSB was effectively, in Mr Trainor's words, "sticking a harp on the front" of them.
She said a clear distinction existed between the products which it made and over which the board had responsibility for safety, and those imported, over which it had no such responsibility. However, she admitted this distinction was never made clear to haemophiliacs, whatever about their treaters.
The board had no responsibility at the time to signal that distinction, she said, and "nor do we do that now".