Consultant medical staffing at the Blood Transfusion Service Board was seriously low in the 1980s, when critical decisions needed to made about the safety of blood products, the tribunal heard.
There was a 20 per cent drop in the number of staff on the pay roll at Pelican House and a 10 per cent drop in the number of staff in the Cork offices of the BTSB between 1986 and 1989 due to cutbacks.
Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (formerly the BTSB), said similar operations in Britain would have had five medical consultants while in Dublin there was just one consultant and one in Cork.
Dr Terry Walsh, due to give evidence to the tribunal later this week, was the board's consultant haematologist at the time, having been appointed in 1981. He was also in an ad-hoc management position from the mid-1980s, following the retirement of the board's national director, Dr Jack O'Riordan, and his workload was increasing, she said.
Staff and facilities at Pelican House were "totally inadequate", Dr Lawlor said. She was spending her 18th and final day in the witness box and being cross-examined by Mr Charles Meenan, counsel for Dr Walsh.
She added it was clear by the end of 1986 that the board was in serious financial difficulty and had been for some time.
Cross-examined by Mr Ian Brennan SC, for the Minister for Health, she said even if the board had decided not to import blood products, which went on to infect the majority of haemophiliacs with HIV and hepatitis C, they would come into the State anyway as they were licensed by the Minister.
Mr Brennan put it to her that there was a statutory obligation on the BTSB to "furnish advice, information and assistance" to the Minister and if it was concerned about any products "under its roof" after they had been licensed the board had a duty to inform the Department of Health.
Dr Lawlor said this would have been a good idea but the BTSB had been told by the Department in 1980 that their work should not overlap with the National Drugs Advisory Board. There were also instances where products had been licensed against the advice of the BTSB, she said.
Counsel for the BTSB, Mr Frank Clarke SC, said there was no written advice to the Department, but in July 1983 a representative of the Department of Health attended a BTSB board meeting where the element of risk attached to use of imported blood products was discussed.