The private business dealings of the BTSB's former chief technical officer, Mr Sean Hanratty, came under scrutiny briefly yesterday for the first time.
He was named as the director of a commercial company called Acu-Science which was founded in 1982 and supplied pharmaceutical products to the board for a number of years afterwards.
More significantly, it was suggested that Mr Hanratty may have funded, either personally or though the company, a BTSB research project which could have stopped haemophiliacs from becoming infected, and from which Mr Hanratty could have benefitted through patent rights if it proved successful.
The project - to make clotting agents for haemophiliacs using in-house technology - was, however, abandoned without explanation after three years' work.
Mr Hanratty has already been identified by the tribunal as the BTSB employee who ordered the destruction of all pre-1986 dispatch documentation in 1993, the year he retired. It is believed the records may have provided crucial evidence in support of legal actions being taken by haemophiliacs against drug companies which manufactured infected products.
Mr Hanratty, who died in 1996, is also understood to be the official referred to in evidence as having been investigated by the BTSB over his links with a pharmaceutical company.
The Irish Times has confirmed that Mr Hanratty was the subject of a detailed report on allegations of a conflict of interest over the supply of products to the BTSB. The unpublished report, which was presented to the board members in January 1991, examined claims that Acu-Science was supplying products to the BTSB at up to twice the price of other companies.
The allegation was made by Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, who had complained that neither hardware nor blood packs had been put out to tender under a Pelican House spending programme. Mr Rabbitte claimed that around £1.5 million was being spent each year on packs which could be bought on the market at half the price.
The official who oversaw the investigation is due to give evidence at a later sitting of the tribunal.
As well as having extensive business interests, Mr Hanratty was a long-serving Fianna Fail party activist and a member of the national executive committee of the party that approved Mr Charles J. Haughey's successful leadership bid in 1979.
The suggestion yesterday that Mr Hanratty may have funded or benefited from a BTSB research project was not allowed to stray beyond that - a suggestion. Judge Alison Lindsay said it was inappropriate to make a point if the ground had not been laid for a point. The matter will be left to a later date when a BTSB witness who is more familiar with financial matters gives evidence.
Adding to the intrigue over the research project is the manner in which it was succeeded, very promptly, by a contract arrangement with an overseas drugs company, Travenol. In 1984 the board decided that instead of proceeding with the home-production project it would seek tenders from fractionators to produce clotting agents from Irish plasma.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr John Trainor SC, noted that Travenol had started at a "distinct advantage" over other companies in the tendering process by being employed to do a trial run in June 1984. Mr Trainor initially suggested Travenol had been "set up" for the contract, but subsequently withdrew the comment.
Yesterday was also the first day Mr Noel Fox was named in evidence. Mr Fox, a former chairman of the board who has given evidence at the McCracken and Moriarty tribunals, is a chartered accountant and former financial adviser to the Dunnes Stores Group.
He was cited in the minutes of a board meeting in July 1985. The board at the time had queried a proposal from Mr Hanratty to sell the Factor 8 clotting agent fractionated by Travenol at a reduced price to hospitals.