A sum of €20 million has been spent on establishing and servicing the Lindsay tribunal of inquiry into the infection of more than 260 haemophiliacs with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood and blood products. In light of its recently published report, the tribunal was an expensive exercise in futility. A vast amount of taxpayers' money was expended in discovering precious little, with scarcely apportioned blame for the debacle. Culpability and responsibility were fudged in the report to the extent that it injured the victims again and the second injustice was almost worse than the first.
The report demonstrated an appalling lack of sensitivity for the victims of this tragedy and a lack of understanding or appreciation of what the victims endured. It is patently clear that the major share of the blame must attach to the Blood Transfusion Service Board. Its failure to provide HIV-free home-produced product for haemophiliacs prior to 1984 is inexplicable. Its failure to heat treat Factor 9 and withdraw non-heat treated Factor 9 directly led to the infection of seven haemophilia sufferers with HIV, and the subsequent deaths of five people. The buck must inevitably stop with the BTSB, given its failure to warn GPs treating haemophiliacs of the risks of using commercial products which the BTSB had imported and for which it should have been held responsible.
The BTSB adopted a cavalier attitude and demonstrated an irresponsible lack of urgency about the infection of haemophilia sufferers. This was evidenced by the observation of Professor Ian Temperley, head of the national haemophilia treatment centre, in June 1986, that he believed five, and possibly six, haemophiliacs were infected with the virus as a result of the Irish blood product. There was an unwarranted delay in introducing HIV screening. The BTSB was responsible for supplying inaccurate and incomplete information to Ministers for Health between 1983 and 1992, including the former Minister, Barry Desmond, who unintentionally presented misleading information to Dáil Éireann in 1985.
Up to now, 79 haemophiliacs have died from contaminated blood products, most of which were supplied by international drug companies. It is imperative that a full inquiry into the role of international pharmaceutical companies in supplying contaminated blood to Irish haemophiliacs be set up without further delay. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, should honour his previously stated commitment in this regard. Since the law regarding tribunals was amended this year, an inquiry can be headed by a judicially appointed inspector, rather than a judge, thereby precluding the necessity for a major tribunal.
In its failure to carry out its supervisory role over the BTSB, the Department of Health and Children must also accept some culpability. The BTSB had personnel and structural problems in the early 1980s and was clearly not competent to cope with the imminent threat from HIV and the spread of AIDS. The Department displayed both indecision and tardiness in its response. Its arrogant insistence that imported products were responsible for all the infection, when it was perfectly aware that its own home-produced product was responsible for part of the infection, is inexcusable.
Since the buck stops with the Department of Health and Children, it is essential that new legislation to expedite adequate and generous compensation for HIV-infected haemophiliacs be introduced without further delay. This is the least the State can do for the victims of this horrendous failure of one of its principal Government agencies.