The chairwoman of the haemophilia tribunal, Judge Alison Lindsay, has ruled that hospitals, health boards and other parties before the tribunal are entitled to claim privilege over certain documents.
This means documents generated by the Department of Health, hospitals, doctors, health boards and an insurance company in preparation for litigation and the tribunal will not be examined by the tribunal.
Judge Lindsay said the right to claim privilege was enshrined in statute. "It cannot be described as a suppression of documents," she said.
The argument put forward by the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS), which claimed the Oireachtas had waived this right when it drew up terms of reference for the tribunal, was "fundamentally flawed". A resolution of the Dail could not change statute. Amending legislation would be required.
In addition, she said, the right to legal privilege was vested in an individual, and the State could not waive that right.
She said under Section 5 of the terms of reference, the section which the IHS claimed contained an implied waiver of privilege, State agencies were required to co-operate with the tribunal. All persons who had been requested to co-operate with the tribunal and discover documents to it had done so.
She disallowed the IHS's application for an order for the production of all documents to the tribunal in the possession of Departments of State and State agencies.
The IHS had also claimed several parties before the tribunal had not properly listed in their affidavits documents over which they claimed privilege.
Judge Lindsay ordered those who had not done so - the BTSB, the National Drugs Advisory Board, St James's Hospital, the Adelaide and Meath Hospitals, the Southern, Western and North Eastern Health Boards, and Ms Cecily Cunningham, a former employee of BTSB - to file supplementary affidavits within six weeks.
After the ruling, the administrator of the IHS, Ms Rosemary Daly, said the society would seek a judicial review of the ruling in the High Court.