More than three years after the publication of the findings of the Finlay tribunal, one of its key recommendations, that the blood transfusion service should move to new premises, is about to be realised.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) will move to its new £30 million headquarters at St James's Street, Dublin, next to St James's Hospital, this weekend.
The blood bank, in an attempt to put a past associated with breach of standards behind it, changed its name to the IBTS last April and now it will also shed Pelican House as the name of its headquarters.
Its new premises, which is 2 1/2 times the size of Pelican House, will be called the National Blood Centre.
Mr Justice Finlay, who inquired into the infection of 1,600 people in the State with hepatitis C, said in his report of March 1997 that the new headquarters should be completed by 1999.
A spokesman for the IBTS said the move had been delayed because validation of new equipment had taken longer than expected, and a deal in terms of disturbance money and other benefits, including car-parking, had had to be worked out with over 250 staff.
Donors in the capital who wish to give blood can continue to do so at Mespil Road until November, when a new donor clinic will open at D'Olier Street.