At the outset, I express my regret for any offence I may have caused to people who have suffered so much.
I was outlining the difficulties concerning the truth as regards the board's role and its responsibility for factor 9-related HIV infections, or its knowledge of same. Neither chairman nor board members were called to the tribunal to settle this central issue. Instead, the tribunal chairman, Ms Justice Lindsay, took it as fact that the board did not know and, therefore, this information did not come to the Department of Health, which led to the Minister for Health at the time, Deputy O'Hanlon, giving misleading, inaccurate and incomplete information to this House, albeit unwittingly.
It is reasonable to expect that such a chain of events would have been the subject of scrupulous attention and investigation by the tribunal. The haemophiliac community was poorly served by this failure and so was this House. We have a right and a duty to know when a serving Minister was led up the garden path, intentionally or not, and, as a consequence, misled the public who are represented in this House. It is up to the Minister for Health and Children to investigate this matter further. He should appoint a senior counsel to go through all the documentation with the full compliance of the BTSB. If there is any non-compliance he should take immediate action, and I look forward to his reply to this particular request when he responds to this debate.
We do not have answers concerning the conflict of interest in the role of Mr. Seán Hanratty, who was a member of the board and yet, at the same time, a company director of Accuscience, a company responsible for importing factor 8 concentrates into this country. Furthermore, there was no thorough investigation into his destruction of documents, which not only created obstacles for haemophiliacs taking legal action, but also led to the finding of the tribunal that 20 people have remained untraced who may potentially be infected by HIV. That inability to trace these people stems directly back to the destruction of records. Their untraceability may well mean that more illness and death will result from this desperate saga.
We have to commend all those victims who were courageous enough to speak at the tribunal. Their testimony, more than anything, is a central part of this process. We have to ensure that the Minister for Health and Children finishes the work that should have been taken up by the tribunal chairman, that is to investigate the role of international pharmaceutical companies. Her decision not to extend the terms of reference was most regrettable. In fact, her statement at the early stages on this issue was essentially that it was too early to make a decision on whether to investigate these companies' roles, and later she refused to do so on the grounds that it was too late in terms of the proceedings of the tribunal. I do not believe that she was restricted by the terms of reference. She clearly did not wish to embark on that part of the project as her refusal to accept the Minister's suggestion indicates.
It is now vital that, whatever form this investigation takes, the lessons learnt from this process are applied and mistakes are not made in the same way. The international pharmaceutical companies are important. For example, the report does not deal with the role of Armour Pharmaceutical Company in respect of its defective heat treatment process. One Irish child died as a consequence of an Armour product, yet the report is silent. An expert witness, Dr. Francis, talking at the tribunal about the role of international companies stated: "What they did was eliminate a whole generation of haemophiliacs who indeed needed their products".
I commend the media for its role in highlighting the issues affecting Irish haemophiliacs. Television programmes like "Bad Blood" made a real and significant difference and the coverage over the years by the media was essential to exposing the nature of the catastrophe. Great hopes were pinned on this tribunal, and great effort was put in to make it live up to its possibility. Sadly, the outcome has not lived up to the expectations. As we can see all around us, dark, painful and important secrets about Irish society are being revealed. However, the full truth has not yet been told about the contamination of blood products and their impact on Irish haemophiliacs. It is a matter of deep regret and it is a fact that must not be forgotten. We should all strive to ensure that whatever can be done is done to provide the closure and ease of mind that the haemophiliac community so richly deserves.
I hope that the Minister and the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, the chairman of which I will be writing to in this regard, will pursue the unanswered questions in the report. Clearly, the Oireachtas committee is limited, particularly in light of court decisions, but at the same time it provides an important democratic forum where these issues can be further explored.
I ask, as does the Irish Haemophiliac Society, that the Minister for Health and Children take on the specific issues concerning the role of the BTSB in respect of its responsibility as regards the infections caused by factor 9 and that he appoint a senior counsel to be given the brief to survey and assess all the documentation, because not all the documentation came to the tribunal. Documentation was withheld, not by the Minister but by the board. Nevertheless, the Minister appoints the board and he is in a powerful position to ensure that all that information comes into the public arena.
I would like to ensure that we proceed with this work rather than presume that, because the tribunal has sat, that represents inevitable closure on the issue, because there is grave dissatisfaction and disappointment regarding the lack of conclusions and findings in the report. It is inconclusive in many ways although, having said that, it is also an important report and its value lies to a great extent in the record of events that took place, particularly the testimonies of individual people who were brave enough to come forward.
At the outset, I expressed my regret for any offence I caused. It is the last thing in the world I wanted, and I wanted to put on the record that any assistance I can give in the future to people who have suffered will be very heartfelt.