The chief executive of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) was accused of treating an Oireachtas committee with contempt yesterday for refusing to discuss details of a report on blood testing adopted unanimously by the committee last month.
Mr Martin Hynes told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children he had been advised not to discuss the report as it "sought to prejudice issues currently before the Lindsay tribunal [into contaminated blood products] for determination".
He said the committee had put the blame for the contamination scandal at the door of the IBTS, formerly known as the Blood Transfusion Service Board, without any evidence.
He said the committee chairman, Mr Batt O'Keeffe (FF), had stressed the need to follow due process in regard to other tribunals. Due process should also be followed in the case of Lindsay inquiry, with which the IBTS had "at all stages pledged to co-operate fully".
Mr O'Keeffe said Mr Hynes appeared to be using the tribunal as a smokescreen for not dealing with the substantial issue in the report, namely the proposal by the IBTS to centralise all blood testing in Dublin and to stop testing at its Cork centre.
Mr Alan Shatter, Fine Gael's spokesman on health and children, said he continued to support the report and, in particular, its recommendation that testing should continue at both centres.
He said the committee was not seeking to prejudice the tribunal's findings but it had a duty to deal with any issue which might impact on welfare of patients today.
He said a letter from the IBTS to the committee last month was extraordinarily arrogant in its tone and content. It seemed the service had been made sensitive to any criticism due to the contamination scandal.
Mr Brendan Kenneally (FF) said Mr Hynes had misrepresented the report and had treated the committee with contempt.
In his submission, Mr Hynes criticised the committee for embarking on investigations and taking evidence from a sub-group of the Southern Health Board opposed to the ending of testing in Cork before the IBTS had been informed.
