Request to investigate drug firms rejected

The chairwoman of the Lindsay tribunal has rejected an application by the Irish Haemophilia Society to investigate certain actions of pharmaceutical companies which supplied infected blood products to the State.

Judge Alison Lindsay said inquiring into the "state of mind" of the firms in question would not assist her in reporting on the matters set out in the terms of reference. "I believe I can do so properly and fully without undertaking such inquiries," she said.

Her judgment was delivered to the tribunal yesterday, the last public hearing before the summer recess.

Reacting to the decision, Ms Rosemary Daly, administrator of the IHS, expressed disappointment that the chairwoman had taken such a narrow interpretation of the terms.

"The moral obligation is for a full inquiry," said Ms Daly. "Citizens of this State have had their life expectancies taken away from them, their families have been left fatherless and it's up to the Oireachtas to find a mechanism to allow an investigation to happen that finds out the answers why."

Yesterday's ruling was in response to a submission made last week by counsel for the IHS, Mr Richard Nesbitt SC, who said the inquiry would run the risk of being flawed unless the companies were investigated. But Judge Lindsay said none of the terms of reference expressly directed her to inquire into the area. If the Oireachtas had intended the tribunal to investigate the drugs firms it could have included a specific clause to that effect.

The IHS said further investigation was necessary into the apparent attempt by Armour Pharmaceuticals to suppress information which raised doubts about the safety of one of its blood products.

Judge Lindsay said the society was arguing for an interpretation of clause 6 which required the tribunal to investigate the reasonableness of the conduct "not of the persons within the State but of any person or body who might have relevant information to convey about a relevant product". This, she said, would involve a major inquiry into the state of mind of companies at the time.

The tribunal had also written to a number of pharmaceutical companies and had received some information. However, there was nothing in that correspondence to suggest that any body of evidence existed which had not yet been examined by the tribunal which would be relevant to the matters the tribunal was required to investigate.

Regarding Armour, she said, it had not been shown that further investigations would be likely to disclose new communications to persons in the State.