Conflict of interest claim `based on intuition'

The former chief executive of the Blood Transfusion Service Board who investigated a senior employee over a potential conflict of interest told the tribunal yesterday that information he gave to the board on the matter was based on "intuition" rather than fact.

In a report on allegations that the late Mr Sean Hanratty was a shareholder in a company which supplied blood products to the BSTB, Mr Ted Keyes claimed the senior technical officer had informed the board he had disposed of the shareholding within months of obtaining it.

Yesterday, however, Mr Keyes admitted there was no documentary evidence to support the claim. He stressed, however, that Mr Hanratty had produced evidence of his own "and I had no reason not to believe him".

The investigation into Mr Hanratty arose from allegations made in December 1990 by Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, then a Workers' Party TD, that a senior executive of the BSTB was a director and shareholder of Accu-Science, a distributor of diagnostic equipment to Pelican House.

Accu-Science was alleged to have been a sister company of Intra-Science, which acted as a major supplier of blood packs to the board on behalf of a Dutch company, NPPI.

Mr Keyes said he discovered Mr Hanratty was still registered with the Companies Registration Office as a director of AccuScience. He asked Mr Hanratty for an explanation and was told that there must have been an error in processing a transfer of directorship form.

Mr Hanratty said he had been a shareholder in early 1982 when the company was incorporated but resigned a year a later when he realised there was a potential conflict of interest. He claimed he had informed the board of this situation and had forwarded a change of director notice to the Companies Registration Office but that it appeared to have been mislaid.

Mr Keyes said a letter from solicitors acting on behalf of Accu-Science supported Mr Hanratty's story. A change of director form was ultimately registered with the Companies Registration Office on January 25th, 1991.

In his report to the board three days later, Mr Keyes rejected Mr Rabbitte's allegations and said: "The fact that Mr Hanratty was a director and shareholder of Accu-Science prior to 1983 was known to a previous board and a decision by Mr Hanratty to dispose of his interest in 1983 was made following discussions with the board."

Asked what evidence he had to support this claim, Mr Keyes replied that he "just got that information" from Mr Hanratty. No one else had told him this was the case, although he said his "feeling" was that Mr Hanratty had informed the former national director, the late Dr Jack O'Riordan, about the shareholding and that Dr O'Riordan told him to "get out".

Mr Keyes conceded, however, this was only "a guess", or "intuition".