Bureaucratic letters from the Department of Health to the BTSB were intended to "buff back" the BTSB when it was seeking funds for equipment to produce home-made blood-clotting agents which would replace imports, the tribunal heard.
The BTSB's deputy medical director, Dr Emer Lawlor, said the letters came in 1980 when the board was effectively "broke".
The BTSB's then director, Dr Jack O'Riordan, wrote to the Department in February 1980 saying the board had been requested by doctors to start producing a more concentrated form of Factor 8 "as a matter of urgency". The Department replied four months later stating that "in view of the general economic circumstances" the board should outline the costs involved.
Dr Lawlor said there was no way the BTSB could meet the costs and this was "a typical bureaucrat's letter", referring the matter back to where it came from "as smartly as possible".
When counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr John Trainor SC, suggested to her that this was a reasonable request from the Department for information, she said he was at the disadvantage of never having worked in the health sector.
"When consultants have ideas and seek funds, the Department asks for more details, constantly putting things back, hoping the person will go away if you generate enough paper work. I can tell you they get diplomas in this.
"This is a way of buffing it back. I'm sorry, I get these sort of letters quite frequently and that is what it is," she said.
In 1981, the National Haemophilia Services Co-ordinating Committee decided that consideration should be given to applying for an EEC grant or a grant in the context of the Year of the Disabled to fund home production of Factor 8 and in October that year it was suggested at a meeting of the committee that if funds were not forthcoming from the Department of Health they should approach the Department of Finance, the Department of Industry and Commerce, the IDA or the Irish Goods Council.
Dr Lawlor said this was "a sad state of affairs".