Responsibility for the organisation and management of the national blood transfusion service rests with the Blood Transfusion Service Board, BTSB. Following the report of the Finlay tribunal of inquiry, the BTSB is implementing a wide-ranging programme of modernisation in order to adapt to emerging developments in transfusion medicine.
The closure of the BTSB Cork centre is not on the agenda of the BTSB or my Department. All that is being considered is a possible change in one aspect of the Cork operation, vis-à-vis donation testing. There is no suggestion of any change in relation to the other scientific and technical services currently carried out at the Cork centre, such as blood grouping, components processing, compatibility testing and ante-natal screening.
In February 1998, the board of the BTSB decided that having regard to international practice PCR testing, which is the most sensitive way of detecting viruses, should be carried out at the new national headquarters which is under construction. The proposal which is now being assessed by the BTSB is whether all serological testing, not only PCR, should be performed at the national headquarters. A consultancy project commissioned with the approval of the previous Government recommended that the BTSB should develop a strategy to consolidate donor testing to a single location.